Underwhelming Sets and Traits in ESO

Masel · April 2017

Underwhelming Sets and Traits in ESO – Tweaking Numbers and making worthless Sets and Traits great again!
I believe many of you have, like me, thought a lot of times „I wonder if this set or trait could be fun to use and effective in this build“ and found that it simply underperforms (or overperforms in some cases) in damage, utility, sustain and healing, but was cool in the general way of thinking behind it.
I wanna go through all the sets that need tweaks in their numbers in order to become worth using. Of course this is a lot of work, but if we all participate we can actually try to make the nice guys from ZoS think about implementing some of those changes. I’m a rather PvE oriented player and would gladly accept the help of any experienced PvP players to make it more balanced throughout both sides of the player Base.

I will complete the formatting within the next days so this becomes easier to read, I did this in Word and copying the formatting did not work at all

OK let’s start with sets:

First of all, I’m going to adjust numbers, and in some cases add new bonuses or remove bonuses that just don’t make sense at all and for some reason don’t get changed. The tables show the already improved suggestion.

Almalexias mercy:

5-piece set gives aoe-healing on damage taken. Cooldown is too high and proc chance is too low. So either guarantee it after 3 seconds or remove the cooldown and make it 10% chance.
New Tooltip:
2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Spell Resistance by 1935
4 Items Increases your Spell Resistance by 1935
5 Items When you take damage, you have a 20% Chance to heal yourself and all allies within 7 meters by 2429. This effectcan only occur once every second.

Eagle Eye:

3-piece set, increases crit rating and range of bow abilities. In general a fun set, but the 3-piece bonus needs to be worth slotting over Vicious Ophidian/Alkosh or Agility on Bow Focused Builds. Add in another 200 Weapon damage on Bow abilities on the 3-piece bonus and multiply the crit bonus with 1.5 to match Agility values.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Weapon Critical by 1032
3 Items Increases the Range of your Bow abilities by 3 Meters. With an equipped Bow, also grants 200 Weapon Damage.
4 Items /
5 Items /

Agility/Willpower:

Great starters that have become very affordable. In endgame they lost their place as you can’t add a fourth piece bonus and minor slayer is better. My suggestion would be to add a four piece bonus for weapons that gives you 4.5% crit for weapon and spell, respectively.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina/Magicka by 1400
3 Items Increases your Weapon/Spell Damage by 174
4 Items Increases Weapon/Spell Critical by 1032
5 Items /

Wilderqueens Arch:

Snares enemies through bow abilities. Doesn’t have any use in PvE, so adding either a Fixed AoE DoT to it might make it worth using. E.g. Bow abilities infect enemies with the wilderqueens curse that deals 2000 Poison Damage to enemies within 5 meters every second for 5 seconds. This effect can occur every 8 seconds.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
4 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
5 Items Reduces the Movement Speed of Enemies hit by your Bow abilities by 30% for 5 seconds and infects them with the Wilderqueen's curse, dealing 1250 Poison and 1250 Disease damage to them and all enemies in a 5 meter radius every second for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur every 8 seconds.

Buffer of the Swift:

Pvp set that gives Shields on damage taken. In order to make it better remove the 10% chance and maybe add minor evasion.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
4 Items You take 5% less damage from other Players.
5 Items Whenever you take Magical Damage, you have a 10% chance to receive a damage shield that absorbs up to 4000 damage.

Burning Spellweave:

Sorry, but this set is way overtuned and makes all others look weak. 480 spell damage on full uptime And a decent uptime on burning (which leads to more blockade damage) is way too strong, tune it down to 480 spell damage or replace the Spell damage bonus with recovery or spell resistance.. It will still out-dps Julianos due to burning.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
5 Items When you deal damage with a Flame Damage ability, you have a 20% chance to apply the burning status effect to the enemy and gain 600 Spell Damage for 8 seconds. This effect can occur once every 12 seconds.

Eternal Warrior:

While this is a fun set to use, sets that proc on death do not really have much use in PvE and the 3-piece is worthless in PvP. So instead, make it proc on high incoming damage AND death and reduce the cooldown to a minute. That way it can be a great Ultimate Generation set and still provide the safety it was intended to deliver. Maybe >50% of health as a border.

Maw of the Infernal:

This set does very underwhelming damage and procs infrequently except in heavy attack builds. Double the damage it does and make the duration at least 30 seconds so the spawn and despawn animations don’t take out that much time or let attacks refresh the duration.
New Tooltip:

1 Item Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
2 Items When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack, you have a 10% chance to summon a fire breathing Daedroth for 15 seconds. The Daedra's basic attacks deals 8257 Physical Damage. Every additional Light and Heavy attack has a 10% chance to refresh the duration.

Way of Martial Knowledge:

This set used to be great, but the 4 second cooldown kills it. It basically boosts every 8th action by ten percent, making it a 1.25% damage increase on the five piece. You can actuall reduce the cooldown to 1 second and it would still only buff every second ability making it a 5% increase overall.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal damage, you increase the damage of the next ability by 10%. This effect can only happen every second.

Way of Air:

Doesn’t have any use in PvE. If dodge rolls buff something. It should be a long-lasting buff so you can actually try to include it in your rotation. 4 piece needs another Buff in It like weapon crit. Make the buff 500 weapon damage and increase its duration to 15 seconds. Seems strong, but you’d still have to dodge every 15 seconds and the two regen bonuses don’t help your damage at all.

2 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
4 Items Increases your Detection Radius by 40% and increases your Weapon Damage by 129.
5 Items Dodge rolls increase your Spell and Weapon damage by 500 for 15 seconds.

Way of Fire:

Weaker version of Red Mountain. Reduce cooldown to one second.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
3 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal damage with a Weapon ability, you have a 20% chance to deal an additional 4000 Flame Damage. This effect can occur once every 1 seconds.

Ice furnace:

This is one of the sets that I don't get. Weapon damage on a magicka set? Change it to spell damage And you’d have a fun build with Burning Spellweave. Ice – fire mage here we come. Oh and also double the damage because it’s aheavy set that forces you to sacrifice three jewels to be worth considering.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal direct damage with a Frost Damage ability, you have a 50% chance to deal an additional 2100 Flame Damage to all enemies within 8 meters around the initial target. This effect can occur once every 1 second.

Bogdan the Nightflame:

Veeeery underwhelming. Increase the proc chance to 10% and the radius to 10m.

New Tooltip:

1 Item Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
2 Items When you heal a friendly target, you have a 10% chance to summon a totem for 6 seconds that heals you and your allies in a radius of 10 meters for 3483 Health every 1 second. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

Infallible Aether:

Used to be meta on healers, now it just fills in on enemies that are immune to concussion as it overwrites it and prevents off-balance from happening. Make it a unique buff so it becomes useful again as a support set!

2 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
3 Items Grants Minor Slayer, increasing your Damage Done against Enemies in Dungeons and Trials by 5%.
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items Your fully charged heavy attacks do an additional 903 damage.Enemies you damage with fully charged Heavy Attacks are afflicted with an Aether for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 8%. Adds 688 Spell Critical.

Briarheart:

First of all, add SHARPENED weapons to this set. Then triple the heal it gives and increase the duration to 12 seconds so it is actually worthwhile as a self-healing set.

2 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
5 Items When you deal critical damage, you have a 10% chance to increase your weapon damage by 449 for 12 seconds. While Briarhearts are active, your critical hits heal you for 1800. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

Iceheart:

While this set sounds nice, the damage it gives is neglectible. Make the damage higher and increase the radius to 8m as grothdarr is.

New Tooltip:

1 Item Increases Spell Critical by 688
2 Items When you deal Critical Damage, you have a 20% chance to gain a damage shield that absorbs 8600 damage for 6 seconds. While the damage shield holds, you deal 1550 Cold Damage to all enemies within 8 meters of you every 1 second. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

Elemental Succession:

Also sounds fun, but there aren't enough builds in this game that can actually use all three types of damage other than force pulse. When using two elements at 50% each, you get a spell damage buff of 515 on one of them but lose it on the other and have four seconds without a buff to anything. Double the spell damage it gives to each element. That way you get 1030*0.5+1030*0.5+1030*0=515 spell damage on a build that uses two elements equally and this makes them more viable. Also you’d get a constant 310 spell damage to force pulse.i can see this on on mag dk lightning builds, sorcs that use fire or wardens with fire or lightning.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
5 Items While you are in combat, you gain a rotating bonus to Flame, Shock, or Frost Damage. The active element changes every 4 seconds. Your attacks dealing damage with the active element gain 1030 Spell Damage.

Affliction:

Weak proc set, gives max magicka as a four piece. Make the cooldown one second and change the four piece to stamina.

New Tooltips:

2 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
5 Items When you deal disease or poison damage, you have a 50% chance to deal an additional 2979 Disease Damage. This effect can occur once every 1 seconds.

Arch-mage:

Sustain set that requires fully charged heavies to fire. I’d like this to deal irresistible damage to shielded targets through light and heavy attacks too. Still thinking about this one.

Essence thief:

Make the essence automatically come to you in a moderate speed. Other than that great set.

Combat physician and Gossamer:

Only work on enemies that aren’t at 100% health, change this and there we go.

Flanking Strategist:

Just a little stronger than Hundings and very situational. It should give you at least double the buff to try it out in PvP and give you a HoT of the damage done.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
3 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items Strikes in the Back of your enemies hit with an additional 660 weapon damage and heal you for the damage done over 10s.

Galerions Revenge:

Damage is way too weak, make it at least double as strong.

2 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal damage with a Light of Heavy Attack, you put a Mark of Revenge on the enemy for 15 seconds. After stacking 6 Marks of Revenge on an enemy they detonate for 10000 Magic Damage.

Hide of Morihaus:

You can quadruple the damage and then it might be fun with eternal hunt.

New Tooltip:

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Physical Resistance by 1935
4 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
5 Items Roll-dodging through an enemy knocks them down and hits them for 8000 damage.

Heem-Jas Retribution:

3 seconds is veeery short. Make it 8 so you actually have something from it in trash mobs and add-heavy boss fights.

2 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
5 Items When an enemy within 28 meters dies, you get Major Berserk for 8 seconds, increasing your damage done by 25%.

Witchman's Armor:

This is a burst heal and sustain boost on ultimate cost. Dawnbreaker will actually heal you for ~3.4k health and stamina. If you cast it every 30 seconds, you have 145 health and stamina per second, very underwhelming. I’d suggest adding the same amount of healing and stam return on cast over 1s per 10 Ultimate cost of c ultimate. So add 3,4k per spec instantly and another 3,4k over 12.5s on dawnbreaker.

2 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
5 Items When you use an Ultimate ability, you heal for 30 Health and you restore 30 Stamina per point of the Ultimate's cost and an additional 30 Health and Stamina per Point of the Ultimate's cost over 1s per 10 Points of the Ultimate’s cost.

Hircine's Veneer:

Add ~2k stamina for 12 group members on top of the recovery.

2 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
5 Items Increases the Stamina Recovery of up to 12 allies within 28 meters by 10% and increases their Maximum Stamina by 2300.

Spelunker:

Weird set that only buffs five abilities out of which only two are used and not for the damage they do. Bone Shield doesn’t even benefit from it. Make it add 500 Spell damage on synergy abilities and leave the stamina return on every synergy your allies pop.

Molag Kena:

Add in Heavy Attacks to proc it and increase the duration to 8s. With the sustain as it is right now reduce the penalty to 15% to enable more classes to sustain it.

1 Item Increases Spell Damage and Weapon Damage by 129
2 Items Dealing Damage with 2 consecutive Light or Heavy Attacks triggers Overkill, increasing your Spell and Weapon Damage by 516 and increasing the cost of abilities by 15% for 8 seconds.

Nerien’eth:

Either change the 1 PC bonus to spell damage or increase the damage by 20%. Or simply change the cooldown to 2 second. That way it feels a lot stronger.

1 Item Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
2 Items When you deal Direct Damage you have a 10% chance to summon a Lich Crystal, exploding after 3 Seconds, dealing 8862 Magic Damage to all enemies in a 4 meter radius. This effect can only occur every 2 seconds.

Para Bellum:

Reduce the time needed to one second and half the shield strength.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
3 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
4 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
5 Items When you have not taken damage for at least 1 second, you receive a Damage Shield that absorbs up to 6406 Damage.

Permafrost:

Make it work on all allies in a 10m radius and make it deal damage around the ally when a shield bursts. E.g. Increases the Health regen of allies in a 10m radius by 957 while they are guarded by a damage shield and deals 1000 cold damage in a 5 meter radius when a shield bursts.
This would work great on a warden or a DK tank with igneous Shields and would be a very good offensive tank set. As it is part of a vMA set it should have potential to make the shield worth using.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
5 Items Grants 957 Health Recovery to Allies within 10 meters who are protected by a Damage Shield. Whenever a Damage Shield on an ally within 10 meters expires or bursts, deals 1000 Cold Damage to enemies within 5 meters of the ally.

Phoenix:

Make this set grant major and minor expedition and make you immune to snares so you can actually escape the situation for 15 seconds.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you die, you instead become immune to all negative effects and healing for 3 seconds, When the effect ends, you heal for 17200 Health and explode for 8600 Fame Damage to all enemies within 8 meters. You also gain Major and Minor Expedition for 20 Seconds, increasing your Movement Speed by 30% and 10%, respectively and become immune to Snare And Stun Effects for 20 Seconds.

Tormentor:

Make this set work on direct damage through single target weapon abilities. This way you can use it to taunt on frost staffs with clench or force pulse to avoid the heavy attack taunt and increase your resistances.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Adds 4% Healing taken
4 Items Adds 4% Healing taken
5 Items When you deal direct damage with a single-target ability, you increase your Spell and Physical Resistance by 3642 and taunt the enemy for 15 seconds, forcing it to attack you.

Warrior’s Fury:

Make this set also grant you 300 spell and physical resistance on damage taken with the same cumulative effect. And make it work on damage taken, not critical damage taken.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items When you take damage, your Weapon Damage is increased by 30 and your Resistance (Physical and Spell) is increased by 50 for 6 seconds, stacking up to 25 times.

Destruction Mastery:

Increase 5-piece bonus to 3000 Magicka.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items While having a Destruction staff equipped, increases your Maximum Magicka by 3000.

Armor of Truth:

Very situational and underwhelming. Change it to proc on applying status effects on an enemy and increase it to 400 weapon damage.

2 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items When you inflict a status effect on an Enemy, increases your Weapon Damage by 434 for 10 seconds.

Glorious Defender:

Make this grant you major evasion for 10 seconds on a light and heavy attack and return 350 stamina everytime you dodge an attack.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal damage with a light or heavy attack, you have a 20% chance to gain Major evasion for 10 seconds, increasing your dodge chance by 15%. You also restore 400 Stamina and 2 Ultimate every time you dodge an attack.

Slimecraw:

Change the 1-piece bonus to spell damage and weapon damage, similar to molag kena.

1 Item Increases Spell Damage and Weapon Damage by 129
2 Items Grants you Minor Berserk, increasing your Damage done by 8%.

Archer’s Mind:

Make the five piece grant 10% crit damage and 200 weapon damage while wielding a bow. This seems like a strong five piece, but bows are supposed to become viable right? And TFS grants you a flat 10%+ damage increase so this isn’t stronger than that.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
3 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
4 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
5 Items Increases your Critical Damage done by 8% and grants 200 Weapon Damage while wielding a Bow.

Wyrd tree’s Blessing:

Make this heal all allies in a 15m radius for 20000 over 15s on proc too and apply minor magickasteal.

2 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
5 Items Casting a Magicka ability removes up to 5 negative effects from you, heals all allies within a 15m radius for 20000 over 15 seconds and applies minor magickasteal to all enemies within a 15m radius from you. This effect can only occur once every 25 seconds.

Noble duelist's silk:

Very weird set. Change 1-piece bonus to Spell damage. Could work well with shuffle on a magicka toon and a lightning staff, but requires a lot of incoming damage.

2 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
3 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you dodge an attack, your Light an Heavy Attacks deal an additional 1225 damage for 8 Seconds.

Overwhelming Surge:

The name is irritating. Make this an 8m AoE around you and then we’re talking!

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items When you activate a class ability, you have a 15% chance to surround yourself with a torrent tha deals 2365 Shock damage to all enemies in an 8 meter radius for 6 seconds.

Cyrodiil 3 PC Sets:

Multiply all of those by 1.5 to match agility/willpower/endurance.

Swamp Raider:

Increase the Weapon Damage Bonus to 600. Seems strong, but it should work great on a DK with claw, injection, noxious breath and FoO to proc it constantly.

2 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
5 Items When dealing Damage with a Magicka ability, your Poison and Disease Damage Abilities gain an additional 600 Weapon Damage for 10 Seconds.

Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver:

Those were supposed to promote hybrid builds, but they are pretty weird as they are. change the four piece bonus to spell critical/weapon critical (swap them out), respectively and switch out their five piece bonuses too.
That way those two sets can function as a substitute for the vMA staffs on the back bar.
2 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina/Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina/Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases Weapon/Spell critical by 688
5 Items When activating an Ability that costs Stamina/Magicka, your light attacks deal an additional 774 daage and Heavy Attacks deal an additional 1161 damage for 10 seconds.

Destructive Mage:

Remove the cooldown and make this work on yourself too. Totally underwhelming as it is right now.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
3 Items Increases Spell Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items Dealing Damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack, you place a Bomb on the enemy for 10 seconds. When you or another player hit the target with another fully charged Heavy Attack, they detonate he Bomb, dealing 7875 Magic Damage to all enemies within 8 meters.

Twin Sisters:

Make this set proc on blocking and dealing damage so you can use it offensively and defensively.

2 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina by 933
4 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
5 Items When you deal melee damage or block an attack, you have a 10% chance to let all enemies within 5 meters bleed for 10375 Damage over 8 seconds, ignoring their resistance. This effect can only occur every 8 Seconds.

Ashen Grip:

Seriously underwhelming, needs significantly more damage to become useful. Could be especially good as an easily obtainable alternative for dropped sets for beginners.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
4 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
5 Items When you deal direct melee damage, you have a 20% chance to breath fire to all enemies in front you for 12000 Flame Damage. This effect can only occur every 4 seconds.

Eyes of Mara:

Generally sounds fine, but sustain is not really an issue on healers, so giving this set an offensive additional bonus would make it more effective. Give restoration staff abilities a 10% chance to grant 5% crit to allies hit by them.

2 Items Increases your Magicka Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases your Spell Damage by 129
5 Items Reduces the cost of your Restoration Staff Abilities by 12% and increases the critical chane of allies hit by your Restoration Staff Abilities by 1095.

Kvatch Gladiator:

Only works on enemies hit that are below 25%, which is way too low. Make it let your attacks hit up to 200% harder on enemies below 50% health so it gives you a gradual execute on everything and a decreasing Weapon Damage Bonus working the other way around.

2 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
3 Items Increases Weapon Critical by 688
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items Your Light and Heavy Attacks deal up to 200% more damage against enemies below 50% health, based on their missing Health. Increases your Weapon Damage by up to 300 against enemies above 50% Health, decreasing to 0 based on the enemies missing health.

Vampire’s Kiss:

Set that doesn’t give damage bonuses and still works on killing enemies. Change the bonus to work on enemies dying in range, similar to Vicious Ophidian so you don’t have to kill enemies yourself and you can wear this on a tank. Maybe add a Stamina Recovery and Increase the healing too.

2 Items Increases your Health Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
4 Items Adds 4% Healing taken
5 Items When an enemy within 28 meters dies, Heals you for 14000 over 6 seconds and restores 420 Stamina.

Morkuldin:

Fun set, but the summon duration is too short, similar to Maw of the infernal, increase this to 30 seconds as well OR let another proc renew the duration.

2 Items Increases your Maximun Stamina by 933
3 Items Increases your Stamina Recovery by 129
4 Items Increases your Weapon Damage by 129
5 Items When you deal damage with a Light or Heavy Attack, you have a 10% chance t summon an animated weapon to attack your enemies for 15 seconds. The Animated Weapon’s basic attack deals 4551 Physical Damage. Each subsequential hit with a Light or Heavy Attack has a 10% chance to refresh the duration.

Orgnums Scales:

Just make it increase your health regen by 50%, remove the 60% barrier. Also make it weaken the effect of Vampirism on Health Recovery up to 100% based on missing health.

2 Items Increases your Health Recovery by 129
3 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
4 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
5 Items Increases your Health Recovery by 50% and decreases the Effect of Vampirism on your Health Recovery to up to 100%, based on your missing Health.

Pelinals Aptitude:

This was supposed to make hybrid builds workable, but it gives three recovery bonuses and only sets damage stats to the higher one. Make it give both spell and weapon damage, stamina and magicka and recovery on the 2, 3 and 4 pc bonuses.

2 Items Increases your Weapon and Spell Critical by 688
3 Items Increases your Maximum Stamina and Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases Weapon and Spell Damage by 129
5 Items Your Weapon and Spell Damage both become the highest one of the two values.

Spectres Eye:

This is such a weak set… Make it at least permanent (increase duration to 6s) and make it reflect projectiles hit at you when dodging them.

2 Items Increases your Spell Resistance by 1935
3 Items Increases your Maximum Magicka by 933
4 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
5 Items When you cast a Magicka Ability you gain Major Evasion, increasing your dodge chance by 15% for 8 Seconds. You also reflect every dodged attack back at enemies for 8 seconds while dealing an additional 2000 Magic Damage. This effect can only occur every 10 seconds.

Torugs Pact:

Very underwhelming too, make the effect at least 100% stronger. That way it actually gives a significant buff on the 5-piece with infused weapons. I mean you still have to sacrifice sharpened for it.

2 Items Increases your Maximum Health by 1064
3 Items Increases Spell Damage and Weapon Damage by 129
4 Items Increases your Spell Resistance by 1935
5 Items Increases the potency of your weapon’s enchantment by 100% and reduces the cooldown on the enchantment’ proc by 1 second.

Those are my suggestions as far as sets are concerned, please tell me if something is totally off or OP in any way.

Balancing traits in ESO:

Precise:

Currently grants 7% critical chance. With a normal criteria damage modifier, this is an increase in healing and damage of 3.5%.
Proposed change: Give precise a 10% crit chance increase and a 10% crit damage modifier. Assuming a crit chance of 66,7% and a normal crit damage modifier before precise, this would lead to a DPS increase of 10%*0.60=6% increase in damage. This would increase with the crit damage modifier bonuses like minor and major force, elfborn/precise strikes (which is additive now) and templar and nightblade passives.

EXAMPLE:
Having the 10% crit damage bonus from the templar, 7.5% from elfbor, the new minor force (10%) and 50% major force it would lead to a damage increase of 10%*(0.5+0.10+0.075+0.075+0.1+0.1)=10%*1.05=10,5%, which is somewhat in line with what sharpened gives you right now, plus giving you the same bonus to healing. This would be effective with Twice-Born Star as well.

New Tooltip:

Increases your Critical Chance by 10% and your Critical Strike damage by 10%.

OR:

Increases your Critical Strike chance by 13%.

Nirnhoned:

currently gives your weapon an increase in damage of 11%. For staves, shield and board and bows this is an equivalent of 146 spell/weapon damage, and an increase in healing and damage of around 3% without major brutality/major sorcery. For two handed weapons and dual wield, the increase is around 172 spell/weapon damage, which is around 4% damage increase. The contribution to the effective spell/weapon damage is thus very low.
Example: My effective spell power without nirnhoned is around 6500 with 40k magicka and 2500 spell damage. Adding 20% from Major sorcery is then 3000. Factoring in nirnhoneds 146 spell damage, I have 2646 before major sorcery and 3172 after major sorcery. Comparing the two leads to an increase in effective spell power of 172, so a whopping 2.4%.
So in order to make nirnhoned viable, we need to at least triple it’s value to 33%, this way nirnhoned would give 440 spell damage, so 2940 spell power before major sorcery and 3542 after it. The increase in effective spell power is then 542, so it would lead to 7.4% damage increase. Given that this trait buffs healing, works on Shields and scales with increasing spell and weapon damage, this value would increase with stacking spell damage and weapon damage, respectively.

New Tooltip:

Increases the damage of this weapon by 33%.

Sharpened:

Currently increases the damage by over 11% in PvE and 8% in PvP, given that the target’s resistance is not fully mitigated. It doesn’t work on Shields. As I’d prefer bringing the other traits on par with it, I’d leave the trait as it is atm or make it percentage-based at 29%(5280/18200).

New Tooltip:

Increases your Spell and Physical Penetration by 5280.

OR

Increases your Spell and Physical Penetration by 29%.

Powered:

great for healing as it is, but I’d like it to have a group synergy effect as well, e.g. Synergies you grant restore a specific numbers of resources to you and allies.

New Tooltip:

Increases healing done by 7%. Also restores 400 Stamina and Magicka to you and allies who activate your synergies.

Charged:

Has it's uses on both healers and DDs now with the new minor vulnerability, so it's fine in my opinion.

Infused:

Is strong on tanks, and in my opinion, it doesn’t need to be changed much except to apply on poisons as well.

Defending:

Strong trait, let it behave similar to sharpened, so either leave it or make it percentagebased.

Prosperous:

Make it increase the chance of the set that you’re wearing it of, so if you wear seven BSW pieces, it increases the drop chance of BSW items by 700%.

New Tooltip:

Increases the Chance to receive a specific Set Item by 100% per Prosperous Armor Piece worn of that specific Item Set.

Training:

Can stay as is, just remove it from full level armor.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZoS_RichLambert @ZOS_KaiSchober, maybe you can consider some of these changes prior to Morrowind as it would make people run the old content too if there are rewards worth using in them.

[Edited Title for Real World Politics]

notimetocare · April 2017

Very long post, very short answer: No. You can never make every set viable in the way you want. There will always be a best. Massive overhauls tend to do more hard than good

Marktoneth3 · April 2017

Briarhearts is bad

Tommy_The_Gun · April 2017

Well I always thought that your character should be good... not your gear xD.

Masel · April 2017

notimetocare wrote: »

Very long post, very short answer: No. You can never make every set viable in the way you want. There will always be a best. Massive overhauls tend to do more hard than good

There's a lot of effort and thought in it and your answer does not contribute to the discussion at all. Just because there will always be a best in slot set, it doesn't mean that you can't and shouldn't bring other sets closer to it. In my opinion there is no argument against bringing sets closer together to create diversity.

This is not even a massive overhaul. In most
cases I just changed numbers or switched bonuses here and there.

Masel · April 2017

Marktoneth3 wrote: »

Briarhearts is bad

And why is that? It gives more than hundings this way if you get a good uptime and gives a good HPS too.
If you want to have an alternative to minor slayer you need to make 5 piece bonuses stronger and worth using over it.

Masel · April 2017

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Well I always thought that your character should be good... not your gear xD.

Of course, but gear is undeniably a strong factor in how strong your character is and if there are only a few choices of gear, where's the point? Skill is only amplifying the Base strength that the gear gives you.

TheDoomsdayMonster · April 2017

While I dont feel the Vampire Lord set is underwhelming, I do feel some of the Vampire abilities could use a bit of work...

Baleful Mist just doesnt do enough damage...

Batswarm with either morph just doesnt hit hard enough...

The utility granted by Accelerating Drain doesnt make a significant difference during combat...

Now Invigorating Drain is fine, as is Elusive Mist...

Anyway, I think I feasilble work around would be to add a buff to the 5th piece of the Vampire Lord set to off set the weakness of some of the Vampiric abilities...

I think something in the order of adding to the duration of Vampiric Abilities would suffice...

IMO, adding a 1-2 second buff to the duration of all Vampiric Abilities would be sufficient to add value to both the armor set and to the slotting of Vampiric abilities themselves...

Masel · April 2017

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

While I dont feel the Vampire Lord set is underwhelming, I do feel some of the Vampire abilities could use a bit of work...

Baleful Mist just doesnt do enough damage...

Batswarm with either morph just doesnt hit hard enough...

The utility granted by Accelerating Drain doesnt make a significant difference during combat...

Now Invigorating Drain is fine, as is Elusive Mist...

Anyway, I think I feasilble work around would be to add a buff to the 5th piece of the Vampire Lord set to off set the weakness of some of the Vampiric abilities...

I think something in the order of adding to the duration of Vampiric Abilities would suffice...

IMO, adding a 1-2 second buff to the duration of all Vampiric Abilities would be sufficient to add value to both the armor set and to the slotting of Vampiric abilities themselves...

Yeah sometimes the weak performance of sets lies in the skills they buff, so it would be better to change the skills behind them... This thread is strictly about changes to sets to bring them more in line, but I agree with what you're saying!

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

I think Agility and Willpower are fine as they are now. I know on my MagDK I use them and the vMA staff as a psuedo 5 set.

Burning Spellweave, yes, I agree, is a bit over-tuned.

Eternal Warrior is fine as it is now. I run it on my tank and it's great for practicing vet trials or doing pugs with a rather *** healer. Not to mention it's always fun to duel and watch the other players just stand around wondering wtf is going on, i killed him.

Maw of the infernal: Wait until after morrowind releases before changing this, they said something about buffing pet damage.

Way of Fire: Yep, indeed reduce the CD to 1 second, so it's half as effective rather than a quarter.

Way of martial knowledge: Reducing the cd to 1 sec is a sure way to get 2H guy's in PvP just spamming the empower variant of uppercut (wrecking blow).

Hide of Morihaus: That'd be a fun change

Hem-jas: This is more of a trash mob clearer, perfectly fitting for Hem-Jas. adding in an increased duration may be interesting, but I don't think it's needed.

Wyrd Tree: Increase that cd by at least three times. that's op.

Orgnum's Scales: If anything, don't have it effect vampirism.

Pelenial's Aptitude: Swap the 2nd and 4th trait so it doesn't become the go to 2 piece.

Torug's Pact: I actually run this on my Stamblade in vMA. It's good as it is since damage enchants get to a 1.4s ICD. Great for upfront initial damage paired with viper.

Warriors Fury: God no. Increasing your max hp, your defense, AND while getting zerged you get insane damage and resist buffs? I don't want to see those tough to kill DKs getting even stronger and harder to kill.

Archer's Mind: I'd like to see bows become viable, but not because of sets.

In General, You're suggesting these changes prior to morrowind specifically, wait and see what they do first with the PTS, then come back to this idea.

Also, use the [spoiler[ ~~~~ [/spoiler[ tags to help reduce clutter and make it easier to navigate.

Araviel2 · April 2017

stop trying to make every set into clean stamina/magica set, you have no idea how important stamina regen can be for a pvp magica build, or how useful max magica can be for a stam user.

olsborg · April 2017

Slimecraw is already pretty strong, I do agree about Briarheart tho, that set needs a buff, just look how f strong burning spellweave is compared to it for a set that does somewhat the same thing in principle

Bobby_V_Rockit · April 2017

Buff Vicious Serpent!

Masel · April 2017

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

I think Agility and Willpower are fine as they are now. I know on my MagDK I use them and the vMA staff as a psuedo 5 set.

Burning Spellweave, yes, I agree, is a bit over-tuned.

Eternal Warrior is fine as it is now. I run it on my tank and it's great for practicing vet trials or doing pugs with a rather *** healer. Not to mention it's always fun to duel and watch the other players just stand around wondering wtf is going on, i killed him.

Maw of the infernal: Wait until after morrowind releases before changing this, they said something about buffing pet damage.

Way of Fire: Yep, indeed reduce the CD to 1 second, so it's half as effective rather than a quarter.

Way of martial knowledge: Reducing the cd to 1 sec is a sure way to get 2H guy's in PvP just spamming the empower variant of uppercut (wrecking blow).

Hide of Morihaus: That'd be a fun change

Hem-jas: This is more of a trash mob clearer, perfectly fitting for Hem-Jas. adding in an increased duration may be interesting, but I don't think it's needed.

Wyrd Tree: Increase that cd by at least three times. that's op.

Orgnum's Scales: If anything, don't have it effect vampirism.

Pelenial's Aptitude: Swap the 2nd and 4th trait so it doesn't become the go to 2 piece.

Torug's Pact: I actually run this on my Stamblade in vMA. It's good as it is since damage enchants get to a 1.4s ICD. Great for upfront initial damage paired with viper.

Warriors Fury: God no. Increasing your max hp, your defense, AND while getting zerged you get insane damage and resist buffs? I don't want to see those tough to kill DKs getting even stronger and harder to kill.

Archer's Mind: I'd like to see bows become viable, but not because of sets.

In General, You're suggesting these changes prior to morrowind specifically, wait and see what they do first with the PTS, then come back to this idea.

Also, use the [spoiler[ ~~~~ [/spoiler[ tags to help reduce clutter and make it easier to navigate.

Finally some comprehensive feedback

I agree that we'll have to see what they do with Morrowind, but I don't really see them caring about older outdated sets, as sad as that is.

The reason why some sets really stand out as the same as with the sharpened trait - > penetration is way too strong right now...

Beardimus · April 2017

Didn't read them all but agree on the ones I did.

Trinimacs Valor used to be ok, its nerfed to useless now

99% of Magika DPS build copier streamer fans run BSW. its says something. Variety should be

cheemers · April 2017

Some really great ideas here but also some serious overturning as well.

Warriors Fury is the best stamina pvp set in cp-campaigns at the moment, it by no means needs another effect.

Your suggestion for Almalexias Mercy would make it extremely powerful, since with no cooldown you'd be able to deliberately stand in weak dots like caltrops and ritual of retribution and make your group pretty much invincible. Think of how often Desert Rose procced in 1vX situations, then convert that to a group heal... scary gamebreaking stuff.

There are some other sets that have niche uses currently like Noble Duelist silks and Witchman; it's hard to make them applicable to all builds equally since they're already pretty good on specialised builds.

Overall i appreciate the very creative post, but it is impossible to balance all sets to be equally viable. There will always be sets that rise to the top.

Masel · April 2017

cheemers wrote: »

Some really great ideas here but also some serious overturning as well.

Warriors Fury is the best stamina pvp set in cp-campaigns at the moment, it by no means needs another effect.

Your suggestion for Almalexias Mercy would make it extremely powerful, since with no cooldown you'd be able to deliberately stand in weak dots like caltrops and ritual of retribution and make your group pretty much invincible. Think of how often Desert Rose procced in 1vX situations, then convert that to a group heal... scary gamebreaking stuff.

There are some other sets that have niche uses currently like Noble Duelist silks and Witchman; it's hard to make them applicable to all builds equally since they're already pretty good on specialised builds.

Overall i appreciate the very creative post, but it is impossible to balance all sets to be equally viable. There will always be sets that rise to the top.

Thanks for the feedback, that is exactly what I needed as I don't have too much knowledge about PvP sets

didn't know that warrior's fury was actually used. And almalexias mercy is supposed to counter high incoming damage. You can limit it to up to you and 3 group members maybe.

Of course it is impossible to balance all the sets to perform equally in all situations, that is not my intention here. The intention is to bring underused sets back to make them worth considering, and especially make them effective in combination with other sets/special builds etc.

Koolio · April 2017

I really like the morkuldin idea. It needs a buff.

stephkisten_ESO · April 2017

Make Marksman damage bonus work against all mobs, not just players. But I'll take any buff to an armor set that buffs bows.

MopeyHat · April 2017

Araviel2 wrote: »

stop trying to make every set into clean stamina/magica set, you have no idea how important stamina regen can be for a pvp magica build, or how useful max magica can be for a stam user.

Use jewelry and armor enchants?

The_Old_Goat · April 2017

While we're addressing sets that could use some help.

Ysgramor's Birthright Set
(2 items) Adds 1064 Max Health
(3 items) Adds 967 Max Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Spell Damage to your Cold Damage abilities.

When word of the Morrowind's new Warden class having a cold damage skill line leaked, I was excited and hoped this set might actually have some use. However with the change made to frost staffs any hope was quickly snuffed. While I suppose using the jewelry and 1 hd defending weapons and shields on a warden tank might add some utility to this set, I doubt it would be anybodies first choice.

HatchetHaro · April 2017

Seriously, holy smokes, mad props to OP to spending the time on all of this. I'm digging all of the proposed changes, and would love to see these changes make it in-game. I'm tired of the tiny handful of BiS sets clogging up the meta.

Danksta · April 2017

In regards to Briarheart an 1800 heal on crits with no cooldown would be OP. It would be stronger than crit surge heals, even with the inability to crit. I'd rather see them increase the damage part of the 5-piece.

Masel · April 2017

Danksta wrote: »

In regards to Briarheart an 1800 heal on crits with no cooldown would be OP. It would be stronger than crit surge heals, even with the inability to crit. I'd rather see them increase the damage part of the 5-piece.

It has a 1s internal cooldown right now, should've stated that in the OP, sorry.

Danksta · April 2017

Masel92 wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

In regards to Briarheart an 1800 heal on crits with no cooldown would be OP. It would be stronger than crit surge heals, even with the inability to crit. I'd rather see them increase the damage part of the 5-piece.

It has a 1s internal cooldown right now, should've stated that in the OP, sorry.

Well that must've changed then because it didn't when I was running it. You could throw out Caltrops on a mob and get good heals from that alone, but this was also back when it could crit. If that's the case I take back my comment comparing it to crit surge. I'd still rather see them increase the damage part of it, I think. I guess I'd take any buff though, I have a couple pieces that I regretfully golded out back when I just hit VR16.

PlagueSD · April 2017

Marktoneth3 wrote: »

Briarhearts is bad

I disagree. I use this set and bahraha's curse for PvE soloing on my NB. With my high crit, I'm damn near unkillable.

Masel · April 2017

Added Weapon traits.

Gargath · June 2017

A bit necro but... Torug's Pact idea "5 Items Increases the potency of your weapon’s enchantment by 100% and reduces the cooldown on the enchantment’ proc by 1 second" would be an OP, for Master Sword Infused, the self healing buffed with major mending and cp, with any taunt would be massive

.