I'd be interested in people's experiences, as I often hear this set criticised but I like it in practice, and on paper it sounds good. I'm happy to be corrected.

The briar thorns are easy to proc early in a fight, giving a strong buff to weaopon damage (which is affected by brutality buffs), and as the heal has no cool down so you can get great healing if you are using a lot of AoE dots and are fighting large groups of mobs. While it isn't BIS, on my stam sorc and stampler it is a a fun set.

Running 5 hundings, 5 Briarheart, 2 Kra'gh. 8.3k Jabs (not whole damage, each individual jab) crit are really nice, and with 70% chance the noncrits are offset by burning light anyway. People confuse "good" with Best in Slot (which it is NOT). Vicious Ophidian dumps on all other drop sets.

Unfortunately i never found sharpened weapons, only precise. And they cost me WAY too much gold for what it's worth. Though I built it on a stam sorc, with this on top of crit surge it was definitely overheal. I couldn't save myself from one hit mechanics most of the time and I could never tell if my healing was much better on or off, since I'm always healing a ton anyways.

To me, Briarheart is like BSW for stam players, because they have activation periods where they can effectively use ultimates or spam without wasting heavy attacks, and then when it's off you work on getting your rotations back up. But it's not as strong. What is important for good DPS, in my opinion, is your ability to survive as a squishy melee ranged character in tough aoe situations. My stamplar doesn't survive nearly as well as my sorc, therefore my dps on my sorc is more dependable. And I think if you're having a tough time surviving as a stam character, Briarheart is a good answer without crippling your potential damage too much.

This is an almost good set currently you will get less out if this than you will out of Hundings so it's bad. But if it got a change to say 600 weapon damage and upped the chance to proc and dropped the cool down (basically burning spellweave treatment) then it would be a good set. But as is now it is not a good set. Hundings outclasses it.

LOL

You cannot craft hounding on jewellery. And briar can be used with NMG. This combination is great for crit focused builds. With khajiit race you have about 90% crit rate proc on CD, good penetration and free healing.

It has a cooldown, look at all the heavy armor sets that does much of the same, ravager, seventh legion, sure they work in slightly different ways, but no cooldown.

I think the biggest problem with it since Homestead is the healing can't crit because it's a proc. And it was already a very weak heal since there's an internal cooldown and it's a 6th of the potential of crit surge.

datgladiatah wrote: »

I think the biggest problem with it since Homestead is the healing can't crit because it's a proc. And it was already a very weak heal since there's an internal cooldown and it's a 6th of the potential of crit surge.

Agreed that it doesn't seem like a lot, but it heals you every time you crit. If you are running hurricane and/or bloodthirst, with crit surge, the combination of all three are real nice.

Briarheart is not good enough to take the cake in a veteran trials dps build. It's great for a lot of other things, but not for competitive content. There are a couple of reasons, but mostly other sets just do it better.

I've heard of and witnessed a variety of combinations working well with Briarheart, but of everything I know that supports it, it is all pvp or open-world content.

It's a good overland set on a high-crit build such as a Khajiit stamsorc (which is what I use it on) or possibly a stamblade, but it's merely OK in dungeons and trials.

I originally used it in conjunction to a set of NG to get my critty kitty up and running when he hit vet, and as an affordable starter set it does the job.

It doesn't compare with VO at all except as a set you use instead of VO when overland.

It's fun.

It's not so good, tho. As far as end game community expectations.

For running around playing the game, conquering dungeons and stuff not afaraid of the occasional wipe or struggle buss. It's fun and clear just about anything.


The weapons still don't come In sharpened which is a bit of a drag.

If PvE is meant with that question, then nope.

It's obviously a minor Hunding with unsafe uptime and if you are doing 4-men-instance stuff I would prefer Night Mother Gaze (besides VO) or its big brother Twice Fanged Serpent any time, because you can't expect to have all mob resistances debuffed to zero (this usually won't be the case even in raids).

If you have Mahlstrom weapons you will use just 3 pieces VO anyways (for the 5% damage buff). You use VO in PvE not for the sustain, you use it for the 3-set-bonus (5% damage buff).