Which class set is most worth getting from Endless Archive?

tsaescishoeshiner

I'm curious which class set from EA people think is most worth getting--whether in general, in the meta, or just for your own build.

Since you get curated drops starting with the class you run it with, this matters for some as far as which set to go for first. For others, they might think the Nightblade set is best, but only have a PvE sorcerer.

So, which class set would be most useful or best for you?


Class set stats:

Basalt-Blooded Warrior – Dragonknight, Earthen Heart

2 – Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 –Casting an Earthen Heart ability grants you a Rock Stance buff for 10 seconds. While on your Front Bar, you gain Molten Stance, granting you Major Heroism, generating 4 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. While you are on your Back Bar, you gain Obsidian Stance, increasing your Healing Done and Damage Shields by 14%. Bar Swapping will swap your Stance automatically.

Wrathsun – Templar, Dawn’s Wrath

2 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 – Adds 657 Critical Chance
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – When you deal damage with a Dawn’s Wrath ability, gain a stack of Sunlight for 10 seconds, once per attack. You can have 40 stacks max and gain 12 Magicka Recovery per stack. When at max stacks, your Dawn’s Wrath abilities deal 25% bonus damage and a Wrathful Nova is automatically cast on the enemy, but you cannot refresh Sunlight. When Sunlight expires at max stacks, you lose 50% of your current Magicka.
Developer Comment:
Spoiler

Monolith of Storms – Sorcerer, Storm Calling

2 – Adds 657 Critical Chance
3 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – Dealing damage with a Storm Calling abilities’ initial hit or every 5th tick, creates a Monolith near the enemy for 10 seconds, up to one every 1 second. You may have up to 3 Monoliths at a time. Monoliths link to your other Monoliths within 28 meters of each other, each link dealing 3064 Shock Damage every 2 seconds to enemies between and near them. An enemy can only take damage from this set once every 2 seconds.
Developer Comment:
Spoiler

Soulcleaver – Nightblade, Siphoning

2 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – While in combat, strengthen your Siphoning abilities at the cost of Ultimate: Increase the damage and healing of Siphoning abilities by 18%. Reduce the cost of Siphoning abilities by 18%. Casting a Siphoning ability while in combat drains you of 1% of your current Ultimate, with a minimum of 1.
Developer Comment:
Spoiler

Gardener of the Seasons – Warden, Green Balance

2 – Adds 4% Healing Done
3 – Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – Equipping this set grants you Herald of Spring, causing your Green Balance overheals to apply Minor Heroism for 3 seconds. Casting 2 non-Green Balance class abilities within 2 seconds consumes Herald of Spring and grants you Harbinger of Fall for 6 seconds, causing your Green Balance Overheals to create an 8 meter area for 5 seconds, applying Major Cowardice to enemies and Minor Vitality to allies within. You can only create an area once every 5 seconds. You cannot gain Herald of Spring while Harbinger of Fall is active.

Nobility in Decay – Necromancer, Bone Tyrant

2 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3 – Adds 4% Healing Taken
4 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 – Casting a Bone Tyrant ability while in combat grants you Beautiful Corpse for 16 seconds, reducing your damage by 5% and increasing your Armor by 2974, and grants up to 12% Healing Taken and reduces your damage taken by up to 12%, both of which are based on your missing Health. This can proc once every 20 seconds and is reduced by 2 seconds for each slotted Bone Tyrant ability. Casting a corpse consumer ability consumes Beautiful Corpse, treating you as a corpse.

Reawakened Hierophant – Arcanist, Curative Runeform

2 – Adds 731 Maximum Magicka
3 – Adds 731 Maximum Magicka
4 – Adds 731 Maximum Magicka
5 – Casting a non-Ultimate Curative Runeform ability grants an effect for 6 seconds to your affected allies based on how many Crux you had. At 1 Crux, allies gain a damage shield that absorbs 3618 damage. At 2 Crux, allies gain Minor Heroism. At 3 Crux, allies gain Major Protection.

Necrotech_Master

Templar – Wrathsun

i like the idea of the templar set the most

however for others, i think most of the class sets are at least alright or have niche uses

the only one i would say is not worth it right now is the sorc one (too hard to use/gimmicky)

KlauthWarthog

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

The DK set is the only that is not hopelessly clunky and does not come with a caveat.
The Necro set could be neat, but it requires you to be a Necromancer, which is its own caveat.

ESO_CenturionPlayer

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

Sorc main here. Sick of the DK and NB micro tuning while other classes stay in the basement tier.

The sorc set is why I have zero intentions of ever setting foot in EA. I have also never played ToT because it’s just not my thing.

MidniteOwl1913

Arcanist – Reawakened Hierophant

So how many arcs do you have to do to get a part of one of these sets? In general, the EA sounds truly awful so I'm just wondering how much suffering must be endured to get the DK set...

LunaFlora

Necromancer – Nobility in Decay

i like monolith of storms for damage dealer sorcerers,
nobility in decay for necromancer tanks,
and reawakened hierophant for arcanist healers.

and basalt-blooded warrior seems good for dragonknights in pvp maybe? and tanks.
maybe soulcleaver can be alright for nightblade healers? but it reduces ultimate so not sure.

the other sets seem too complicated for me with all the seconds and stacks

phaneub17_ESO

Templar – Wrathsun

It's neat vs a lot of trash mobs, Reflective Light builds 3 stacks per tick. Magicka loss is marginal for a Templar, if you can line up the buff just right you can double Nova then Radiant.

tsaescishoeshiner

How are people using the DK set? As a PvP set or for which PvE build?

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

It's neat vs a lot of trash mobs, Reflective Light builds 3 stacks per tick. Magicka loss is marginal for a Templar, if you can line up the buff just right you can double Nova then Radiant.

Question about this--Wrathsun says it gains a stack "once per attack"--does that mean like once damage instance of any Dawn's Wrath spell? Not what it sounded like to me, but that sounds very fun and useful.

phaneub17_ESO

Templar – Wrathsun

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

How are people using the DK set? As a PvP set or for which PvE build?

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

It's neat vs a lot of trash mobs, Reflective Light builds 3 stacks per tick. Magicka loss is marginal for a Templar, if you can line up the buff just right you can double Nova then Radiant.

Question about this--Wrathsun says it gains a stack "once per attack"--does that mean like once damage instance of any Dawn's Wrath spell? Not what it sounded like to me, but that sounds very fun and useful.

Reflective Light is the only oddball ability since it can stick 3 separate dots, they all tick at the same time doing damage 3 times thus generating 3 stacks. Each Solar Barrage tick generates 1 stack regardless how many targets are hit.

Tyrant_Tim

Necromancer – Nobility in Decay

Nobility in Decay is bugged, so if I had the option to switch my vote, it would go to the Nightblade set.

Necrotech_Master

Templar – Wrathsun

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

So how many arcs do you have to do to get a part of one of these sets? In general, the EA sounds truly awful so I'm just wondering how much suffering must be endured to get the DK set...

you get 1 class drop from tho'at and 1 class drop from a marauder

so arc 1 has max of 1 class drop
arc 2 and beyond have a max 2 class drops

if you can clear arc 4 and all marauders that is 7 pc of class gear (if you wipe on a marauder, it will not respawn for the rest of the arc)

you can also spend archive currency to buy boxes for more gear (2000 fortunes for uncurated box for a specific set, 15,000 fortunes for a curated box for a specific set)

Jaimeh

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

I think the DK set is the best one, but I wouldn't call any of them a must-have, which for me is good news because it means I can prog the archive on a spec I like rather, than one just for the sake of dropping a set.

IZZEFlameLash

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

I'd actually say Arcanist, Nightblade and Dragonknight sets are worth the trouble.

reazea

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

The DK set is the only one that is better than other sets in the game, and it WAY better. In time every DK in Cyrodiil will be running it and it will have to be nerfed.

Destai

Warden – Gardener of the Seasons

Only because I'm a warden main, I'm going with that set first. Objectively though, the DK set is the most attractive.

Soarora

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

DK set would work on all roles. Less-so on DPS but... DPS in EA? Sure.

Theignson

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

DK set is strong since it has no cooldown and can go both offense and defense. I've run it in cyrodil with decent results. Although it currently has a minor bug that its major heroism can be turned off if you recast too soon-- this seems intermittent to me.

I don't think its overpowered since it requires you to use an earthen heart ability every 10 seconds and normally I don't slot as many of these abilities as I do to optimize the set.

Firstmep

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

Wrathsun is very niche use only for trashfight or zerg vs zerg maybe.
It takes too long to build up otherwise, and the damage boost is not good enough, and the extra nova is just a weak aoe dot people can walk out of.
I dont understand how the dk set gives the class their most useful buff, while templar gets this complicated nothingburger.

MudcrabAttack

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

Im not collecting any of them since I don’t do DK, but it seems like perma-magmashell tankiness is getting people high on EA leaderboards, so that’s balancing for you

As soon as my nightblade got the mask I was all set for RP, they’re ready to rob stagecoaches now

MashmalloMan

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

What I look for in a set is design + functionality. To that degree, this is my tier list:

S = DK - as good as it gets, fits the classes theme perfectly, rewarding, balanced, easy to use mechanic.
A = NB - needs a slight buff to make the weaker damage skills in the skill line more viable, but the general direction of cost, damage, healing for 1 ult spent is what more class sets should have done... actually buff the skill line it's focussed for.
B = Necro - would be A/S if the Beautiful Corpse had a better cooldown mechanic and damage reduction was more necessary, but due the current meta.. not quite. Still decent.
C = Templar - Love the idea of this set, but it functionally falls short with no way to choose where you proc the ult and the unnecessarily large mana regen/cost mechanic.
D = Warden/Arcanist - Pretty forgettable, average sets for support. They do "things", but I can't see anyone being excited about them. They're average at best imo, with stat lines that are also very average.
E =
D =
...
...
...
Z = Sorc - Completely usesless. 2s tick rate is unusable in pvp and annoying in pve. Hits lower than universal proc sets. Doesn't do anything for the line it comes from. Too hard to proc with the 1st/5th tick condition on a skill line without a spammable or front bar dot. No aoe damage for monoliths themselves, only the links, so 1 monolith does nothing. Spawn rate/duration too low. Need to sacrifice a pet for pve to make it work, which is currently a gigant dps loss for a set that does minimal damage. Sorc is also heavily direct and single target damage related, the set doesn't play well with their CP or shock staves for 0 benefit. It needs a complete rework.

I really wish they just made these sets 3 piece or mythics, there would of been much better opportunity for theory crafting. The 2-4 piece stat lines are completely unnecessary, locking out roles and builds from using the potentially unique effects.

AvalonRanger

Arcanist – Reawakened Hierophant

I have DK-tank, Stam-Sorc, Necro-Hybrid-DD, and Arcanist Healer character.

But only Arcanist class set is meaningful for my Arcanist Healer.
Other EA gear is almost garbage for me. I was wasting my precious gold material
for the Monolith gear. (/._.\)

Other dungeon and overland gear or crafting gear are far more better than IF-class gear.
No reason to farm Infinity Archive only for the gear.

Turtle_Bot

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

The DK, NB and Necro sets are pretty good. Not BiS must haves, but they fulfil their own niche and either help with different builds or are easy to use on existing builds. I have heard the necro set is apparently bugged though, so be aware of that.

Warden/Arc sets are nice sets, they unfortunately don't have anything unique to help them stand out over existing sets and they only really fit support roles which have their own requirements that these sets don't really help to fill or have a stand out effect for.

Templar set has a really cool design, what it needed was to be less extreme with how it was implemented and its requirements. Reduce the stacks required and mag recovery/loss by half and reduce the damage of its proc appropriately and it would have made for an interesting set for sure, maybe even a potential BiS set if the proc was a synergy instead of random proc.

Sorc set was a complete failure and requires a complete redesign from the ground up. It is the only set I can recall in that it actually nerfs your build to make use of it. The feedback given during the entire 5-6 week PTS cycle for this patch stated as much, as it is a non-functional set where its current design completely conflicts with the abilities from the skill line it is supposed to support. The sorc set even falls short for role play as well, with other, old, generic, proc sets such as Overwhelming Surge, Auroran's Thunder and Thunder Caller being much better to fit that lightning mage theme for role play.

TL//DR: Outside of the Sorc set, all of them are fine to grab for niche or fun builds. They won't be a BiS set, but they can be fun to use and craft a build around and some will have their niche use cases.

BXR_Lonestar

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

@LunaFlora

LunaFlora wrote: »

i like monolith of storms for damage dealer sorcerers,
nobility in decay for necromancer tanks,
and reawakened hierophant for arcanist healers.

and basalt-blooded warrior seems good for dragonknights in pvp maybe? and tanks.
maybe soulcleaver can be alright for nightblade healers? but it reduces ultimate so not sure.

the other sets seem too complicated for me with all the seconds and stacks

have you actually tried the monolith of storms set? It sounds interesting but everyone I see who has experimented with it has said it is garbage, and as such, I've not spent any time grinding it out. Still working on completing my DK set collection right now.

LunaFlora

Necromancer – Nobility in Decay

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

@LunaFlora

LunaFlora wrote: »

i like monolith of storms for damage dealer sorcerers,
nobility in decay for necromancer tanks,
and reawakened hierophant for arcanist healers.

and basalt-blooded warrior seems good for dragonknights in pvp maybe? and tanks.
maybe soulcleaver can be alright for nightblade healers? but it reduces ultimate so not sure.

the other sets seem too complicated for me with all the seconds and stacks

have you actually tried the monolith of storms set? It sounds interesting but everyone I see who has experimented with it has said it is garbage, and as such, I've not spent any time grinding it out. Still working on completing my DK set collection right now.

i haven't been able to try it yet no, haven't collected enough pieces yet.

edited to add:

i made my first comment on November 4.
the Archive was brand new, it hadn't released on playstation yet, and i just looked at the set bonuses.

looking at it again nearly two months later it seems pretty complicated, but it sounds like if it got changed a little it could be better.
like if the monoliths stayed for longer than 10 seconds, maybe 15, and if linked monoliths dealt damage every 1 second instead of 2.

Turtle_Bot

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

LunaFlora wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

@LunaFlora

LunaFlora wrote: »

i like monolith of storms for damage dealer sorcerers,
nobility in decay for necromancer tanks,
and reawakened hierophant for arcanist healers.

and basalt-blooded warrior seems good for dragonknights in pvp maybe? and tanks.
maybe soulcleaver can be alright for nightblade healers? but it reduces ultimate so not sure.

the other sets seem too complicated for me with all the seconds and stacks

have you actually tried the monolith of storms set? It sounds interesting but everyone I see who has experimented with it has said it is garbage, and as such, I've not spent any time grinding it out. Still working on completing my DK set collection right now.

i haven't been able to try it yet no, haven't collected enough pieces yet.

edited to add:

i made my first comment on November 4.
the Archive was brand new, it hadn't released on playstation yet, and i just looked at the set bonuses.

looking at it again nearly two months later it seems pretty complicated, but it sounds like if it got changed a little it could be better.
like if the monoliths stayed for longer than 10 seconds, maybe 15, and if linked monoliths dealt damage every 1 second instead of 2.

It would require a lot of changes to make the set viable.

Myself and many others tested the set on the PTS (feedback was given via countless threads on the PTS section of the forums including the official class set feedback thread). All of us (without exception) reached the same conclusion, that the set, even at its most powerful iteration (during week 1 of the PTS) was still a 5 to 10% DPS nerf to run it over any of the other top DPS sets in the game and it was for multiple reasons.

The main reason it's so bad is because the design itself of the set is flawed. It is a set that wants to sit on the front bar because you want to keep 3 monoliths active all the time, but the skills required to proc it are back bar skills (hurricane/liquid lightning) or the execute that only becomes useful for the final 20% of the fight. The rotation just becomes extremely awkward and un-intuitive to run when using the set as well as creating a conflicting build set-up to get the most out of it.

Another reason was the set also does nothing until it has 2 or more monoliths active. The monoliths don't do anything themselves, its only the beams that do anything and they can't even be stacked.

The other main reason it is so bad is because the skills that proc it are bad with the exception of Hurricane (stam morph of lightning form) and overload (which has its own issues, particularly for group play).
- Liquid lightning is the worst DoT in the game because too much of its damage is tied to its synergy.
- Fury is a horrible execute that starts its execute proc far too late to be practical and its execute damage is barely above a frags proc which can be used at any health percentage while its initial damage is barely above a single standard DoT tick.
- Boundless Storm (mag morph) suffers from the U35 changes that made it tick once every 2 seconds as well as never getting its radius increased from 5m to 7m in U40 to match the new melee attack range of 7m, meaning it now doesn't even hit melee enemies.
- Hurricane is decent, but only because its AoE and DPS increases over its duration meaning it actually hits melee enemies and becomes a decent DoT against stationary targets.
- Streak has a ramping cost, meaning it cannot be spammed like a typical AoE ability would and it's design is as a mobility tool, not an AoE spammable.
- Crit surge cannot proc the set at all because it doesn't deal any damage.
The only real exception is Overload, but that is a toggle ability that adds to the complexity of the rotation due to managing ultimate levels and also takes away from atro uptime where the group major berserk is much more important to the groups DPS than overload + monolith could ever be.

On top of all the issues outlined above, the set got nerfed over the course of the PTS cycle. It got a flat 18-24% damage nerf because they changed its damage type from single target direct damage to area damage over time.
That is 12% reduction because it's no longer buffed by the shock staff passives + a further 6 to 12% reduction from not being buffed by the CP ran on sorcs. (I say 6 to 12% for the CP because some sorcs may run the AoE or the DoT CP, but it still loses the direct and single target CP buffs which are mandatory on sorc due to all of sorcs relevant class DPS abilities being single target and/or direct damage abilities).

The only "buff" the set got through the entire PTS cycle was the fix it got after the final PTS week (before the patch went live) to allow it to critically strike. A pitiful change to a dead on arrival set that needed a complete redesign from the ground up.

The common suggested changes from all of the feed back were as follows:
Easy changes (short term/easy/keeps current set design):
- Reduce tick rate to 1 second down from 2 seconds (standard AoE DoT tick rate).
- Allow monoliths themselves to deal damage around them. (1 of the main changes suggested here)
- Allow the beam damage to be stacked.
- Allow the set to proc every 1, 2 or 3 ticks instead of the initial + 5th ticks only. (The other commonly suggested easy change)
- Allow the set wearer to act as another monolith that the monoliths can tether to.
- Revert the changes to the sets damage types so it actually gets buffed by already slotted CP/weapon passives.

Harder changes (long term reworks):
- Change fury to be a standard instant cast spammable against enemies above 20% health, while keeping its current execute function/design against enemies below 20% health. (This was the main change of this type put forward in the feedback).
- Change the set to be an AoE proc around the set wearer (boring, but functional).
- Redesign the set to be like a Chain Lightning type of proc, where if an enemy is hit by a storm calling ability, a bolt of lightning jumps to a nearby enemy dealing X damage (Y second cooldown per target).

The real kick in the teeth about this set though, was it was supposed to be the set for no-pet sorc builds, but all it does is add more summons...

RebornV3x

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

as a Sorc Main it just sad really such a convoluted set like WTF were they thinking all the sets are kinda trash too except for the DK one which is sad and as someone that has a DK tank they leveled like 3 years ago and use it to Tank like twice a year I really don't care to get it

IZZEFlameLash

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

Lately, leaning toward only Arcanist/Necro/NB. Other sets are lackluster in their own stinky ways. Arc, NB sets are the least lackluster, and Necro is more lackluster than those 2 but still works. Basalt really isn't as good as people make it out to be unless you push IA runs with DK.

MidniteOwl1913

Arcanist – Reawakened Hierophant

I have and have used both the DK and arc set and I found the DK set meh and I really like the arc set for my healer, but it will need some practice to get good at making use of the bonuses.

None of the other sets interested me at all.

Pixiepumpkin

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

I don't find any of the sets compelling but DK seems to be the best by far. Many of them lock you into a role and have pretty uninspiring set bonuses.

a "class" set should be fun, I just dont see any of these as fun.

Gray_howling_parrot

Dragonknight – Basalt-Blooded Warrior

Currently the objective answer is just whatever you want that looks fun because effectiveness-wise, they are ALL seriously underperforming RELATIVE to other popular sets.

I expect that come update 41, there will be some major balance changes to them as almost nobody is using them, so I would just collect all of them if you’re able to and not worry about grinding them out too much yet! Let’s see what the u41 PTS tells us!

kojou

Nightblade – Soulcleaver

The only one I am actually using is the Nightblade one. I use it with Oakensoul and Ansuul on a overland build. It isn't by any means optimal, but it makes my Swallow Soul hit pretty hard with a low cost.

I tried the DK one, but within Infinite Archive I feel like Drake's is better since it also buffs your partner.

I tried the Templar one, but it takes too many stacks to do the cool thing, and it costs you half of your magicka.

I didn't try any of the other ones because they are too niche and don't fit with any current meta or any build I want to try.