I don’t understand armor sets/stats

Psyphiman

Hello, I am a stamblade and have been gathering the following sets:
- Group: Hunding’s Rage + Briarheart
- Solo: Order’s Wrath + Venomous Smite

However, I am having a hard time understanding the stat & mechanics. A lot of guides use insider language that is probably obvious to most players, but I don’t really understand it yet. I need some help understanding what’s going on under the hood.

Is Hunding’s Rage + Briarheart a good combo for groups because it increases your overall stamina for sustain, increases your crit chances, and throws in a little extra healing for survivability?

Is Order’s Wrath + Venemous Smite good for soloing because it increases crit damage and crit healing and does AOE damage when facing multiple enemies by yourself? And what good does crit healing do for a stamblade anyway? Does that crit healing apply to the effect of Ring of the Pale Order, or does the crit healing only work with heal abilities like Vigor?

fred4

The advice you got seems a bit off.

Order's Wrath is a meta fit and forget set. It can work for all content. Solo, dungeon, trials DD, even PvP. It's A-tier for vet trials according to some. It's not miles better than everything else, such as Hunding's, but it edges out a lot of other sets. Many sets in the game are actually fairly balanced.

Hunding's is old. It's in the same vein as Order's Wrath, but lags a bit behind. I wouldn't wear it anymore, unless I was limiting myself to crafted sets and wanted a crit setup for, say, a low level character. E.g. I might wear both Order's and Hunding's in that case. However for power levelling a low level char the meta is Heartland Conqueror with Training trait on weapons.

Briarheart isn't as good as Order's Wrath in terms of pure sustained damage, I believe. However it can be back barred and the 5-piece bonus, once activated, carries over to the front bar for however long it lasts (10 seconds, right?). For the sake of the argument you could use an Infused Briarheart 2-handed weapon with the Stampede skill. Stampede is a guaranteed crit, which would guarantee activating the set and you can switch to your (Order's Wrath) front bar. This build pattern leaves room for both a monster set and a mythic in the build. Stampede also leaves an AOE on the ground, which keeps activating your back bar enchant for 15 seconds while an enemy stands in it. The timers match up, but Briarheart doesn't have the full 15 seconds uptime. I believe it technically excels in short trash fights, not sustained fights. In sustained fights it's more at the level of Hunding's, albeit it's a plus that you can back bar it (certainly in PvP - not sure how common / effective this build pattern is in PvE). The healing bonus is so small you won't really feel it, but then again all healing adds up and the set is easy to get. This makes it a possible solo set in my book. It can also be used on the back bar in PvP, because PvP is all about short term burst to kill another player. There are better options for PvP, though. I believe the next set on your list is more popular there.

I know Venomous Smite primarily as a PvP set, but I believe like Briarheart it can work as a back bar set in PvE. Activation can be reliably controlled in the same way, e.g. taking advantage of the fact that Stampede is a guaranteed crit. I don't know which one is better damage wise and in which situations. The meta for a back bar fit and forget dungeon set is probably Pillar of Nirn, by the way.

As a general rule of thumb crit % is THE most useful stat to have as a PvE DD. A line of crit from the 2 / 3 / 4 piece bonus of a set edges out the other possible stats for damage. It's the stat you're looking for in sets that also have other functions. For example Hexos Ward is a defensive set that still yields pretty good damage, because it includes 2 lines of crit. You may also choose to build into crit as a PvPer, especially as a nightblade, though you're not usually aiming for the same high level of up to 70% that's good for a PvE DD. In PvP, if I have 40%, I'm usually already more than happy. This is because in PvP you're not looking for consistent high damage. You're just looking for a better chance to randomly hit a couple of crits in succession and kill a player that way.

Crit healing applies to healing skills, such as Vigor and Healthy / Shrewd Offering. Order's Wrath buffs your crits with those heals. The 5-piece from Hunding's and Briarheart also buff your healing skills via the weapon / spell damage stat. The 5-piece from Venomous Smite does not. As regards to Pale Order, you healing from that is directly tied to your damage. You heal more, if you do more damage. When the damage crits, you get get bigger heals, because the damage is higher. However Pale Order heals do not themselves crit. There is no double crit where you do crit damage, then the heal for Pale Order is calculated, and yet more crit is applied to the heal after that. This WAS possible in early releases of the game many years ago with skills such as Funnel Health. That skill's heals could double crit and reach insane values, such as 8K per tick heals in Imperial City in PvP, if you did it right. I believe ZOS have well and truly stamped out the possibility of double crits since that time.

Psyphiman

Wow! Thanks for the great information. Going to digest this. So, the way to activate set effects is via crit attacks?

fred4

The way to activate those two particular sets is via crit attacks. It's in the 5-piece description. Some other sets have easier proc conditions. For example Pillar of Nirn activates from any damage done, once it's off cooldown. This be one of the reasons why it's so popular. Aside from it's proc damage being strong it's easier to keep up Pillar with real builds in real content.

Psyphiman

Thank you so much for taking the time to help.

This is the build I was going off on https://eso.justlootit.com/solo-stamina-nightblade-eso/

The recommended gear did not suggest a Venomous Smite weapon. Is it necessary to use a weapon from that set to get the set effect to proc? Or will any crit regardless of weapon trigger the effect?

fred4

You need to wear 5 pieces for a 5=piece set to work. It doesn't matter what those 5-pices are. They need not be weapons. However:

• Weapons count as 2 pieces. Dual wield and 1H+Shield obviously are two actual pieces, but staves, bows and 2-handed weapons also count as two pieces.
• Using weapons from a 5-piece set allows you to make builds where the set is active on a only 1 bar. The build pattern where you complete one 5-piece set only on the front bar, and another 5-piece set only on the back bar, is popular is PvP. It is, perhaps, a little less popular in PvE. You have 14 gear slots in total. 7 body pieces, 3 jewelry, 2 for front bar weapon and 2 for back bar weapon. Completing a set only on the front bar or only on the back bar allows you to fit more gear into your build than you otherwise could, e.g. a 2-piece monster set, a 1-piece mythic, and 1 piece of the ubiquitous Trainee set for extra health.
• In case you go with the above build pattern, you're typically looking for a plain damage set on your front bar, such as Order's Wrath, and a proc set on the back bar. The proc set either deals damage with a cooldown, such as Pillar / Smite, or gives you a timed buff that carries over to your front bar when you bar swap, such as Briarheart. Other sets, such as Wretched Vitality, give you sustain and can also be back barred.
• I'm not saying the above is the best build pattern for PvE. For example if your 4-piece bonuses are a line of crit (that you want active on both bars) and/or you don't have a mythic, it may be better to wear two sets plus a monster set straight up on both bars.

Dagoth_Rac

Psyphiman wrote: »

Thank you so much for taking the time to help.

This is the build I was going off on https://eso.justlootit.com/solo-stamina-nightblade-eso/

The recommended gear did not suggest a Venomous Smite weapon. Is it necessary to use a weapon from that set to get the set effect to proc? Or will any crit regardless of weapon trigger the effect?

Set bonuses are based off how many pieces of set you wear. As long as you have 5 pieces of Venomous Spite on, regardless of gear slots those 5 pieces are in, any critical damage will activate it.

There are a few exceptions to this that you mostly won't have to worry about. Generally, effects can't trigger other effects. Like, the damage from one set usually cannot activate another set. Or if you use a fire attack. Flame attacks have a chance to set the enemy burning, and that burning does damage every second for a while. The initial flame attack that you actively initiated generally will proc sets. But that secondary burning effect generally won't activate sets. Some builds have combat pets. For example, Sorcerer has an imp. If you do nothing, that imp will run around of its own accord and zap enemies with electricity from it's fingers. This generally won't proc sets. But there is also a button you can press to make the imp do area damage every second for a while. That usually procs sets. It seems to come down to whether the player took some kind of action that directly caused the damage to occur. If the damage is a side effect of something else you did, probably not.

Psyphiman

Your responses are amazing! This helps me understand much better. Thank you and have a cookie 🍪

Zodiarkslayer

I have Order's Wrath and Briarheart as a standard for stamina SOLO builds across all classes. Both the wespon damage and the crit% are essential to boosting your abilities' power. You want that in a SOLO/Questing environment as much as possible. Just so, the bursty nature of Briarheart is good for almost every type of fight in this environment. Only lengthy Boss fights are an exception, because of the 5 sec downtime.

I personally do not like damage proc sets. The proc damage over time will miss more often than it hits, because of the much more mobile nature of SOLO fights. Bosses know how to get "out of stupid", as well. 😅
They are really good for static fights with tanks and a lot of group support. But that is like 0.5% of the fights.
In addition, without support sets that boost your damage stats, the amount of the proc damage is much lower when SOLO than it is with a trial group. So, be aware of that!

Psyphiman wrote: »

Is Hunding’s Rage + Briarheart a good combo for groups because it inceases your overall stamina for sustain, increases your crit chances, and throws in a little extra healing for survivability?

Btw, sustain is the recovery of Stamina and Magicka, not adding Maximum Stamina/Magicka to your stat pool.

fred4

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I have Order's Wrath and Briarheart as a standard for stamina SOLO builds across all classes.

I agree out of the sets mentioned in this thread and without fully reviewing the Lucky Ghost build options (yet), this makes the most sense. I agree that even the highly regarded Pillar misses as often as it hits in vMA. It procs on the wrong mob at the wrong time quite a bit. That said I'm personally married to Vicious Ophidian + X (such as Order's Wrath or Hexos Ward) for my solo builds, but presume the OP won't have access to that set yet.

For what it's worth, in my brief look over the Lucky Ghost web site that looks like a pretty meta skill layout for the experienced DD. Requires a proper rotation, which is not easy to play, nor particularly OP - just standard meta stuff - and definitely not unkillable. In other words, while it looks like a competent build, don't buy into the usual YouTube hype. I'd wager the setup is quite squishy and needs experience to play well. As usual, in overland (questing) content this won't matter a damn, in the veteran solo arenas this will be optimal or near optimal, but not easy to play, and for soloing group content, e.g. if you want to really push the limits of what you can solo, it will be unsuitable. You will die. I hate YouTube hype.

Zodiarkslayer

Absolutely agree!