ACD: Weapon & Armor Set Suggestions

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Afternoon folks!

Today's Arm Chair Developer will focus on weapon & Armor sets and suggestions about how to make them more interesting.

The Problem
With One Tamriel we had several new sets added and several older sets tweaked to balance things out. When this happened though, we got a lot of generic "increase x weapon/spell power" when using certain weapons, skills, etc. As a result, many of these sets don't pass the requirements for a meta trials DPS or even a creative PVP build. This means we have a lot of useless sets & a lot of sets that will always be the most sought after.

The Solution
While I don't think most sets can be made winners, I think they can be made a bit more interesting to fit various individuals. Keep on mind some of the suggestions I'm tossing out are not meant to be combined with other ideas, but mixed & matched with proper balancing. Lets get started.

Sword Dancer set

This set gives health, reducing it's position on the desirable list and it's 5 piece is restricted to just dual wield abilities. Compare that to automation that would on any physical abilities and we have a pretty handicapped set. Suggestions for the 5 piece bonus include:
- increase weapon damage by 50 to 100
- increase the range of all dual wield abilities to 5 m for any ranged (flying dagger) or aoe (whirlwind, bladecloak, lacerate)
- change the range of slaughter & whirlwind by 100% (meaning 20% life or 50% life)
- increase blade and blunt by 100%

Sword Singer set

Generic boost to two handed abilities, but unlike sword dancer it at least gives critical. Still, we can do better. Suggestions on the 5 set:
- increase the weapon damage by 50 to 100
- increase forceful to hit nearby enemies for 75% damage
- boost followup to 30% (from 10%)
- reduce the cost of your next 2 hander ability after hitting an enemy with a 2 handed ability

Light Speaker set

This another generic boost to restoration abilities. Rather than pumping up spell damage though, other interesting things could be added to the 5 piece bonus:
- boost restoration expert to heal an extra 20% (35% total) when a target is below 30% health. With healing staff abilities
- Restore X (small amount) of magicka & stamina to 6 party members in restoration staff's AOE (healing springs, combat prayer)
- healing staff abilities have a x% chance of removing a negative debuff

Spider Cult set

This gives a generic boost to destruction staves. There are certainly others with better synergy like spell weave out there that out perform this, so this set needs some love. Here are some suggestions for the 5 piece:
- increase the duration of Destruction Staff DOTs by X%
- DOTs from destruction staff abilities now return x ultimate and will give back 1 ultimate a tick
- Enemies below 25% health take 50-100% more damage from destruction abilities

Spelunker set

I won't lie in saying that this set will be used much due to the lack luster undaunted skills, meaning you may only use 1 ability at a gime, but there can still be some benefit. Before touching the 5 piece those, I believe the 2, 3, and 4 piece bonuses need to be adjusted to dual fill both Magicka & Stamina. No one is going to use this to boost their spell damage on their undaunted if the entire thing is stamina based. This would be a good set to setup a hybrid build if used properly. Now onto those 5 piece bonuses:
- activating a synergy on an enemy forces all DOT damage to instantly damage a target. Activating it on a friendly player forces all HOT heald to instantly heal them. Cooldown for X seconds.
- players activating your synergies get additional health, magicka, and stamina back.
- minor slayer (5% more damage go dungeon monsters) & minor agsis (5% less damage from dungeon monsters)

Vampire Lord's set

The Vampire lord set feels very underpowered with how we only have 3 vampire abilities, 1 offensive, 1 defensive, 1 ultimate. I'm not sure if much can be done to improve it without more abilities but we can boost what we have:
- increase spell damage by 100 to 200 for vampire abilities (given the 2 offensive ability limit)
- reduce the weakness to fire and health regen reductions by 1 vampire level (maybe 2 levels even)
- Going in stealth as a vampire also grants minor expedition (15% more run speed)
- reduction to fall damage by 10% to vampires
- decrease the tick rate for vampire feed and bats swarm to .5 seconds

Netch's Touch set

This gives a boost to spell damage with shock damage abilities, making it more of a sorc set, but even sorcs avoid using full shock damage since a fire staff works so good. So let's boots up the 5 piece here in a few interesting ways:
- minor drain magicka debuff on enemies afflicted with your shock spells
- direct shock damage spells have a 20% chance to disorient enemies
- direct shock damage spells have a X% chance to fork to near by enemies for 50% damage

Ysgramor's birthright set

Ysgramor's birthright set has issues since there few cold damage spells outside of destro and armor sets. So on the 5 piece bonus:
- minor stamina drain debuff on enemies inflicted with cold damage
- snares & roots using cold abilities last 50% longer
- direct cold damage abilities have an X% chance to cause a player to cast an ice spike on the enemy for N amount of damage
- casting ice spell abilities has an x% chance to summon a wall of ice that will redirect ranged damage to it for N amount

Silks of the Sun
Not looking to change much, since silks of the sun already synergizes so well with DKS and spell weave, but if we give minor stamina/magicka drain buffs on netch's touch and Ysgramor's, then silks of the sun would likely get minor defile.

Now this is only a few sets that could get some more attention, there are still plenty others that need improvement. Please comment on what you like & hate in this post, consider what creative bonuses you'd like to see added, and what other sets you want improved. I recommend most sets get the Black Rose treatment, improving upon a skill line's passives or abilities rather than straight up stat boosts. As with all suggestions, everything here will need balance, which I expect developers will adjust if they decide to take on an idea.

Thanks for your time reading this post and happy travels through Tamriel.

Mettaricana · November 2016

I like this

Panth141 · November 2016

Fantastic idea @HeroOfNone - I absolutely love the 'not-a-simple-character-sheet-buff' nature of your suggestions. This would be brilliant for trying out new builds and theorycrafting set-ups.

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Panth141 wrote: »

Fantastic idea @HeroOfNone - I absolutely love the 'not-a-simple-character-sheet-buff' nature of your suggestions. This would be brilliant for trying out new builds and theorycrafting set-ups.

Thanks! I like the idea that master weapons & black rose give to altering your passives or abilities to be changed from good to great. I'm sure theorycrafters will find ways to break this, but that's part of the changing meta.

leeux · November 2016

I really like the ideas... I'd really love to like some of those new sets, but sadly they are too niche or blatantly underpowered to even bother farming them.

A small uplift will really benefit them, and help the economy (less overabundance of the small sample of sets) and help maybe disperse more the people that are constantly farming the same few zones for the same old sets that everyone wants now.

So, agreed from me! +1

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Taking a moment to bring up 2 other sets, both used to be locked in the imperial DLC but have fallen back in their marginal usefulness.

Sheer Venom set

(2 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with an 
Execute ability you infect the enemy, dealing 
8428 Poison Damage over 6 seconds. The 
effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

This was a moderate damage set when it came out, not bad, but few other proc sets were out there. Now, compared to viper, both is DOT, burst potential, and use are crap. 8428 every 6 seconds (~1405 dps) verses 6720 every 4 seconds (1680 dps) is hardly a contest. Put on sheer venom needs to be done from an execute verses venom bring done from a melee attack AND that sheer venom is an DOT verse venom thst is straight up damage, it's obvious this needs buffing. So, here are a few ways:
- boost the damage to 12000 (2000 DPS) over 6 seconds. It's a big number, but remember it's a DOT, pvp folks can purge and heal through it.
- add in the ability of procing multiple targets when using an AOE execute like steel tornado or reverse slice
- recover stamina based on a quarter of the damage dealt
- increase the sage to targets under 25% (boosting execute power)

Swamp Raider

(2 items) Adds 688 Weapon Critical
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage
(4 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina
(5 items) When you deal damage with a 
Magicka ability, your Poison and Disease 
Damage abilities gain an additional 450 
Weapon Damage for 10 seconds.

Previously toxic defiance, it was a fairly good set back when it gave a flat damage bonus to all poison abilities, but now falls flat, only giving a weapon damage boost to poisons that other sets can help. On top of this you need to cast a magicka damaging ability, something not common to a poison DOT setup. So, here are a few different paths to improve this:
- remove the magicka ability requirement, let it passively boost like sword singer, sword dancer, and so many others do.
- return the flat damage bonus per poison tick.
- while swamp raider is activated, poison tick twice as fast
- Enemies attacked with your poisons return back a small amount of stamina and magicka

So, again, more sets that need some tweeking, but I'm surprised that a DLC set is this weak. It really doesn't encourage folks to buy them if there are stronger counter parts in the base game on an easier dungeon.

Thanks for reading folks, post up other sets you think need improvements below!

Lashiing · November 2016

80% of the sets in this game are meant for pvp
all for chance tho, i roll with waves

idk · November 2016

@HeroOfNone

It's always been the case that most sets do not fit the "meta" for high end raiding dps. The recent hostage didn't change that other than it offered more sets in total.

Further, I think a number of sets are interesting in the grand picture as it is. Many differnt 5pc sets for all sorts of gaming styles. I think Zos did pretty good.

orangeman57ub17_ESO · November 2016

Sheer venom is almost a good PVE set. Bump its damage up and I would definitely farm it. Like you said dots in PVP can be purged and don't hit as hard. It sits in PVE are what bring up those numbers. MOAR dots! I would like to see more of sets like these get buffs but it's tough to mess with the mentality of the community. You farm up the BIS item and everything else is garbage. There isn't a 2nd place or 3rd place. BIS or gtfo

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Lashiing wrote: »

80% of the sets in this game are meant for pvp
all for chance tho, i roll with waves

I'd say less than that. Some is made for PVP, Trials, Dungeons, solo PVE, and leveling. Problem is kind of how they have gear that gets progressively better but no leveled area progression means they become trivial.

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@HeroOfNone

It's always been the case that most sets do not fit the "meta" for high end raiding dps. The recent hostage didn't change that other than it offered more sets in total.

Further, I think a number of sets are interesting in the grand picture as it is. Many differnt 5pc sets for all sorts of gaming styles. I think Zos did pretty good.

I do feel it's a good start on ZOS's part too, but most of these use the same formula with no uniqueness to them. While not all will be winners for Trials or PVP, I feel with adding a bit more flair they can be more interesting for dungeons and quest PVE, and maybe a little more PVP application as well.

orangeman57ub17_ESO wrote: »

Sheer venom is almost a good PVE set. Bump its damage up and I would definitely farm it. Like you said dots in PVP can be purged and don't hit as hard. It sits in PVE are what bring up those numbers. MOAR dots! I would like to see more of sets like these get buffs but it's tough to mess with the mentality of the community. You farm up the BIS item and everything else is garbage. There isn't a 2nd place or 3rd place. BIS or gtfo

Yeah, can't beat out all of the meta, but hopefully add sets in between that can hel folks get a little closer to those high damage numbers.

KochDerDamonen · November 2016

I did find all these new x damage to y skills sets dreadfully uninspired. We can't open the door with things like "chance to breathe fire" and "throw everyone away from you on low hp" with the earliest crafted sets and expect people to want to move into things that give flat damage values and no spectacular effects, heh. Certainly doesn't help that they're just not focused, like you say offering random bits of health and such here and there.

I think my "favorite" of the ones you mention would be the Vampire Lord set. It shows a real disconnect with their own game when ZOS produces a set that adds a small amount of damage to two spells, one of which is very ineffectual as-is but that's a problem with vampires not the set, and provides a touch of cost reduction to three spells. Maybe if it was called "Vampire Fledgling" it would make sense

I hope they take these thoughts into account with said sets and anything in the future that only applies to one skill line, or damage type, or anything else specific and requiring specialization. Specializing should be rewarding, right now the only things you can specialize in that feel rewarding are Stamina, Magicka and Fire damage. Lightning is almost there for sorcerers but at the end of the day they're just as happy using fire for attack modifiers.

As an aside, since you asked and it would probably survive longer in a single thread: My thoughts on Ice Furnace.

It's bad, really bad. The set as-is does not synergize with itself. Heavy armor, weapon damage, magicka. Deals fire damage, very little fire damage, off of direct ice damage. If I were to make it into an entirely different set...

Ice Furnace (Heavy, S&B oriented)
(2) - Increase Spell Resistance
(3) - Increase Max Magicka
(4) - Increase Max Stamina
(5) - 25% chance when blocking an attack to emit a chilling cloak for x frost damage every second for 8 seconds. Additionally, this effect's duration can be refreshed by additional blocks doubling the area of effect up to two times (maximum 12m)

Obviously numbers are something I'm not going to perfectly pin down, but the concept of a constant swirling cloak of ice strikes me as awesome. Perhaps slice off the idea of expanding the aoe and instead snap a guaranteed snare in there for non-DK/sorc tanks.

Ice Furnace (Heavy/Light(?), magicka oriented)
(2) - Increase Max Magicka
(3) - Increase Spell Critical
(4) - Increase Frost Damage dealt by 5%
(5) - Applying the Chilled status effect also deals an additional x frost damage per second for the duration.
Spell Damage for Frost damaging effects is increased by x against enemies under the Chilled effect.

Investing in frost damage is fairly unrewarding as-is outside of some peculiar dueling setups in pvp. The sources for it are few, nonexistant within class skill lines even. And after going through all the investment to actually have sources of frost damage, the sets that synergize with it are few and the only intriguing one requires participation in maelstrom arena. Iceheart deals ice damage independent of other sources and I consider it fine as-is.

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Hmm. Thinking about the 5 piece bonus on ice furnace inspires me a little more @KochDerDamonen . Here are some other ways:

- Casting fire based spells surrounds the caster with a 5m ice torrent, dealing 1000~ damage every second for 2 seconds, with a 3 second cooldown. This would synergize with so many more sets in various ways and could be use able by Magicka DKs.
- blocking a non-cold magicka ability has a X% chance to reflect the damage back as an ice spike. Modifying your idea to specifically work against magicka abilities with an icy return, may be able to work in with thunderbug set.
- each magicka atrack builds up an ice charge. Build up 5 frost charges to release a 6000~ ice spear with your next light or heavy attack.

The idea I take here is the "furnace" building up with magicka and returning out first damage. This will boost other sets triggered on frost damage. There may also be more frost abilities in the future, but until then I can only give recommendations on stuff in the game.

idk · November 2016

@HeroOfNone

Would be a complete waste of energy if the only purpose was to make a few more sets more interesting for you, for 4 man dungeons. It's easy to say they use the same formula but that doesn't really say anything

There are a million things more important than some tweaks for a few sets that at the end of the day would probably change little.

And no offense. It's good to have varying thoughts in the forums. However, taking into account the low activity of this thread it seems few are grabbing into this idea.

SanTii.92 · November 2016

Brilliant. All those weapon / damage type buff sets should be moved away from simply adding raw stats to more niche and specific and Fun mechanics like the ones you describe here.

I'll keep an eye for sets I found luckluster or just dull so you can think what could be done, cause I suck doing that heh.

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

@HeroOfNone

Would be a complete waste of energy if the only purpose was to make a few more sets more interesting for you, for 4 man dungeons. It's easy to say they use the same formula but that doesn't really say anything

There are a million things more important than some tweaks for a few sets that at the end of the day would probably change little.

And no offense. It's good to have varying thoughts in the forums. However, taking into account the low activity of this thread it seems few are grabbing into this idea.

I can only build toward myself, but I encourage anyone to come forward with sets that they feel need improvements.

As for the importance, it's there. If several more of these sets are improved and folks want them:
- The economy improves, there would be more middle cost sets for folks to buy rather than just low & high prices.
- It sells DLC, which in turn funds future dlc. If all the sets and even crafted stuff is crap though, no one will bother with it.
- A set that does something interesting engages the players more than simple number cruching, which leads to folks sticking with the game longer.

As for the lack of activity there are various reasons, probably because I'm too wordy & folks react to trollbaiting better than reason and arguements. But outside of this thread I've seen plenty of folks complain about improving sets, as well as in stream, zone, etc. So to me it's pretty apparent there is an interest in improving some of these sets.

Maybe I just need to say "nerf Nightmother, Twice Born Star, and Vicious Ophidian", it would improve the standing of these other sets and upset a lot of people to give replies

. I still prefer to improve sets rather than nerf others though, sure that ZOS does too.

Code2501 · November 2016

What about Stygian which suffers from being a confused medium armor set with robust jewelery that buffs spell damage and magicka. They should swap armor type between stygian and prisoners at least. Ideally the 5 piece would last for several seconds after leaving stealth also.

HeroOfNone · November 2016

Code2501 wrote: »

What about Stygian which suffers from being a confused medium armor set with robust jewelery that buffs spell damage and magicka. They should swap armor type between stygian and prisoners at least. Ideally the 5 piece would last for several seconds after leaving stealth also.

Well prisioner's is more unique than you'd think, since it's 5 piece reduces sprint cost and rewards folks with magicka back for sprinting. So it's considered a light set. But helps you with stamina regen to help with the magicka regen. I actually think there is potential in that for PVP, especially with sorc runner builds.

Stygian is a different a different story. I think the set was originally thought up for a magicka Night blade that needed to get in close (medium to reduce sneak cost) and use magic abilities on a bonus. With recent changes, this set is more viable of that build, using jewelry and weapons, bust still feels weak. I wouldn't take away it's medium armor status though, but offer other changes on the 5 piece like:
- direct melee attacks return a small amount of magicka
- light & heavy melee attacks now stack off spell damage.
- reduce detection radius by 2m
- while in steth, increase magicka regen.

The big issue I see though is there are not enough hybrid builds out there to make this viable. It's more of a skill issue though that I hope to see ZOS to fix.

SanTii.92 · December 2016

Robes of the Withered Hand Set

(2 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery

(3 items) Adds 967 Max Magicka

(4 items) Adds 1002 Max Health

(5 items) When an enemy within 28 meters dies, heal for 1290 Health and gain 1290 Magicka. This effect can occur once every 3 seconds.