Briarheart Set - Does it really need a cooldown?

Solariken · January 2018

Briarheart 5pc - When you deal Critical Damage, you have a 10% chance to increase your Weapon Damage by 449 for 10 seconds. While this effect is active, your Critical Strikes heal you for 609 Health. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

The proc weapon damage bonus is ~50% greater than Hunding's, yes, but with the cooldown the weapon damage bonus is nearly identical.

Now, Briarheart has a lower effective proc chance than sets like Ravager (since crit rating on most builds is ~40-60%) but much lower weapon damage in addition to Ravager having no cooldown. Armor of Truth has about the same weapon damage as Briarheart but also has no cooldown and basically a 100% proc chance if you know what you're doing.

IMO the heal on Briarheart is not sufficient reason to add a cooldown - 609 hp every time you crit is quite low. In PvP the heal is pretty negligible.

As a bow user, I would actually find this set attractive if not for the cooldown. The cooldown kills the viability of the set.

What do you guys think? Remove the cooldown @ZOS_Wrobel ?

datgladiatah · January 2018

My biggest issue is if you compare it to BSW, as it's similar in concept, it gives about 100 more spell damage with an easier proc chance. The duration is about the same. Now, I really wouldn't have an issue with that cause the healing seems good in theory. But THAT has an internal CD too. Doesn't seem terribly fair because the heal is bad. It could be at least 1k a second.

If it was made to be a sustain damage set they should buff the secondary effect more than the first. Otherwise it's identical to Hundings in PVE (performs ever so slightly better)

Everstorm · January 2018

Armor of truth and Ravager are heavy armor sets and thus don't get the dps boosts from the medium armor skill line.

olsborg · January 2018

The cooldown is 5s too long imo, and the % chance to procc is a tad low aswell. Compared to heavy armor sets this is pretty lackluster.

Gilliamtherogue · January 2018

Everstorm wrote: »

Armor of truth and Ravager are heavy armor sets and thus don't get the dps boosts from the medium armor skill line.

Except you can wear them with Medium armor, and get the boost.

Ragnarock41 · January 2018

I do believe this set is fine.

If it needs a buff, Im pretty sure cooldown removal isn't the right way to go with it.

Everstorm · January 2018

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

Everstorm wrote: »

Armor of truth and Ravager are heavy armor sets and thus don't get the dps boosts from the medium armor skill line.

Except you can wear them with Medium armor, and get the boost.

Yes, but if you boost Briarheart to be on par with Ravager/Armor of truth it will get the bonus of the passives on top of that.

Maulkin · January 2018

olsborg wrote: »

The cooldown is 5s too long imo, and the % chance to procc is a tad low aswell. Compared to heavy armor sets this is pretty lackluster.

Compared to heavy armor sets, everything is lackluster. Compared to light armor sets like BSW or Scathing Mage, Briarheart is considerably stronger.

ezeepeezee · January 2018

datgladiatah wrote: »

My biggest issue is if you compare it to BSW, as it's similar in concept, it gives about 100 more spell damage with an easier proc chance. The duration is about the same. Now, I really wouldn't have an issue with that cause the healing seems good in theory. But THAT has an internal CD too. Doesn't seem terribly fair because the heal is bad. It could be at least 1k a second.

If it was made to be a sustain damage set they should buff the secondary effect more than the first. Otherwise it's identical to Hundings in PVE (performs ever so slightly better)

It's not really identical to Hundings, actually, its application is quite different. In Hundings, because it's just a 5pc buff, you have to either wear 5pc Hundings on the body for 100% uptime, or 3 body 2 weapons for uptime equivalent to the time you are on your front bar (assuming a vMA bow is used), if you're combining it with VO (3 jewelry/2 weapons or 3 jewelry/2 body).

With Briarheart, you can wear 3 on the body, 2 DW, and 3 VO jewelry 2 VO body. This means that BH will proc on the front bar and carry over to the back bar, effectively giving you 100% uptime on VO and 100% uptime on BH, which can't be achieved with Hundings.

It's all in the application. I use the latter setup on my Khajiit Stamplar with ~75% crit and never fail to proc it on the front bar.

Solariken · January 2018

Maulkin wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

The cooldown is 5s too long imo, and the % chance to procc is a tad low aswell. Compared to heavy armor sets this is pretty lackluster.

Compared to heavy armor sets, everything is lackluster. Compared to light armor sets like BSW or Scathing Mage, Briarheart is considerably stronger.

BSW and SM are both better than Briarheart - bigger bonuses with much higher proc chances on the right builds.

Solariken · January 2018

ezeepeezee wrote: »

datgladiatah wrote: »

My biggest issue is if you compare it to BSW, as it's similar in concept, it gives about 100 more spell damage with an easier proc chance. The duration is about the same. Now, I really wouldn't have an issue with that cause the healing seems good in theory. But THAT has an internal CD too. Doesn't seem terribly fair because the heal is bad. It could be at least 1k a second.

If it was made to be a sustain damage set they should buff the secondary effect more than the first. Otherwise it's identical to Hundings in PVE (performs ever so slightly better)

It's not really identical to Hundings, actually, its application is quite different. In Hundings, because it's just a 5pc buff, you have to either wear 5pc Hundings on the body for 100% uptime, or 3 body 2 weapons for uptime equivalent to the time you are on your front bar (assuming a vMA bow is used), if you're combining it with VO (3 jewelry/2 weapons or 3 jewelry/2 body).

With Briarheart, you can wear 3 on the body, 2 DW, and 3 VO jewelry 2 VO body. This means that BH will proc on the front bar and carry over to the back bar, effectively giving you 100% uptime on VO and 100% uptime on BH, which can't be achieved with Hundings.

It's all in the application. I use the latter setup on my Khajiit Stamplar with ~75% crit and never fail to proc it on the front bar.

Can the same not be said for Ravager, Truth, BSW, and Scathing Mage?

JobooAGS · January 2018

ezeepeezee wrote: »

datgladiatah wrote: »

My biggest issue is if you compare it to BSW, as it's similar in concept, it gives about 100 more spell damage with an easier proc chance. The duration is about the same. Now, I really wouldn't have an issue with that cause the healing seems good in theory. But THAT has an internal CD too. Doesn't seem terribly fair because the heal is bad. It could be at least 1k a second.

If it was made to be a sustain damage set they should buff the secondary effect more than the first. Otherwise it's identical to Hundings in PVE (performs ever so slightly better)

It's not really identical to Hundings, actually, its application is quite different. In Hundings, because it's just a 5pc buff, you have to either wear 5pc Hundings on the body for 100% uptime, or 3 body 2 weapons for uptime equivalent to the time you are on your front bar (assuming a vMA bow is used), if you're combining it with VO (3 jewelry/2 weapons or 3 jewelry/2 body).

With Briarheart, you can wear 3 on the body, 2 DW, and 3 VO jewelry 2 VO body. This means that BH will proc on the front bar and carry over to the back bar, effectively giving you 100% uptime on VO and 100% uptime on BH, which can't be achieved with Hundings.

It's all in the application. I use the latter setup on my Khajiit Stamplar with ~75% crit and never fail to proc it on the front bar.

How can you have 100% uptime when the buff lasts for 10 seconds and has a cooldown of 15 seconds? Which means you have a best a 67% uptime mathmatically.

Izaki · January 2018

Maulkin wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

The cooldown is 5s too long imo, and the % chance to procc is a tad low aswell. Compared to heavy armor sets this is pretty lackluster.

Compared to heavy armor sets, everything is lackluster. Compared to light armor sets like BSW or Scathing Mage, Briarheart is considerably stronger.

LOL

Briarheart stronger than Scathing Mage or BSW? What you've been smokin'?

Izaki · January 2018

This set definitely needs a buff in the weapon damage and heal values to justify the 5 second cooldown. I'd say that something like 500 weapon damage and 800 health per crit per sec should be fine

DeadlyRecluse · January 2018

Solariken wrote: »

IMO the heal on Briarheart is not sufficient reason to add a cooldown - 609 hp every time you crit is quite low. In PvP the heal is pretty negligible.

I could be wrong (and I don't recall anyone testing it since it first came out, really), but isn't there an internal cooldown on the heal, too? So you can't just AOE/DoT the world and coast on heals from crits?

Bladerunner1 · January 2018

After using the set with front bar weapons on my stamblade I haven't had as much luck as I'd like. All too often the cooldown pushes the proc to start just as my DPS starts to swing to the low side of my rotation. If it could reliably proc while the soul harvest buff is active that would be great.

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

IMO the heal on Briarheart is not sufficient reason to add a cooldown - 609 hp every time you crit is quite low. In PvP the heal is pretty negligible.

I could be wrong (and I don't recall anyone testing it since it first came out, really), but isn't there an internal cooldown on the heal, too? So you can't just AOE/DoT the world and coast on heals from crits?

Right, just one little heal per second max, it doesn't multiply.

kylewwefan · January 2018

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

datgladiatah · January 2018

ezeepeezee wrote: »

datgladiatah wrote: »

My biggest issue is if you compare it to BSW, as it's similar in concept, it gives about 100 more spell damage with an easier proc chance. The duration is about the same. Now, I really wouldn't have an issue with that cause the healing seems good in theory. But THAT has an internal CD too. Doesn't seem terribly fair because the heal is bad. It could be at least 1k a second.

If it was made to be a sustain damage set they should buff the secondary effect more than the first. Otherwise it's identical to Hundings in PVE (performs ever so slightly better)

It's not really identical to Hundings, actually, its application is quite different. In Hundings, because it's just a 5pc buff, you have to either wear 5pc Hundings on the body for 100% uptime, or 3 body 2 weapons for uptime equivalent to the time you are on your front bar (assuming a vMA bow is used), if you're combining it with VO (3 jewelry/2 weapons or 3 jewelry/2 body).

With Briarheart, you can wear 3 on the body, 2 DW, and 3 VO jewelry 2 VO body. This means that BH will proc on the front bar and carry over to the back bar, effectively giving you 100% uptime on VO and 100% uptime on BH, which can't be achieved with Hundings.

It's all in the application. I use the latter setup on my Khajiit Stamplar with ~75% crit and never fail to proc it on the front bar.

I was referring to its pve dps output. They perform equally on average

DocFrost72 · January 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

Except NMG doesn't carry over unless it's 5 on both bars (as of my last testing).

kylewwefan · January 2018

I have no idea. Just puking back up what I’ve heard makes NMG more preferable, and seem about the same on dummy as Hundings on test and solo.

magictucktuck · January 2018

Well I’d be happy w/o the cooldown but with my stamblade in vma I use it with VO with great success sine I don’t have rally or shield just vigor. So I use vigor a LOT less. So I can’t say it’s bad now. I got my flawless with it. So maybe I’m biased on not wanting cooldown since I use it.

magictucktuck · January 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

Except NMG doesn't carry over unless it's 5 on both bars (as of my last testing).

nMG does carry over as it debuffs the enemy. They keep the debuff when u switch to bow

Bladerunner1 · January 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

Except NMG doesn't carry over unless it's 5 on both bars (as of my last testing).

This might explain the last parse I made using Night mother's a few days ago. After months of running with Acuity I thought I'd try NMG again just to see how it compared and it seemed awfully low.

Everstorm · January 2018

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

Except NMG doesn't carry over unless it's 5 on both bars (as of my last testing).

This might explain the last parse I made using Night mother's a few days ago. After months of running with Acuity I thought I'd try NMG again just to see how it compared and it seemed awfully low.

It's a debuff that will stay on the enemy when you switch bars. The problem might be more that it only lasts 6 seconds so it can fade while you're on the other bar.

JobooAGS · January 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

The power in Briarhearts is kind of like NMG. The buff will carry over to your bow bar where Hundings does not. It’s up 2/3 of the time or better and it gives a small heal making it a little better than Hundings in some cases.

It’s also a whacky set that jewelry comes in all flavors.

It has a max uptime of 2/3 of the time. It is a 10 second proc with a 15 second cooldown meaning that is guarenteed to have 5 seconds of downtime at the minimum

Toc de Malsvi · January 2018

It doesn't need a buff, it performs almost identical to Hundings if you run 5 on the body. It can perform better if you run DW weapons. The healing bonus alone makes it more desirable than Hundings in many PVE applications. In my testing BriarHeart performed as much as 2% higher or lower than Hundings and was more prone to swings based on when it procced. Hundings offered a more stable output but has no extra healing benefit.

Silver_Strider · January 2018

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

It doesn't need a buff, it performs almost identical to Hundings if you run 5 on the body. It can perform better if you run DW weapons. The healing bonus alone makes it more desirable than Hundings in many PVE applications. In my testing BriarHeart performed as much as 2% higher or lower than Hundings and was more prone to swings based on when it procced. Hundings offered a more stable output but has no extra healing benefit.

I think a more accurate comparison for Briarheart would be Scathing Mage.

Briar has a 10% proc chance vs Scathing's 20% chance

Briar gives 449 Weapon Damage vs Scathing's 516 Spell Damage

Briar has a 10 second duration with 15 second CD vs Scathing's 6 second duration and 6 second CD. Meaning potential 67% uptime vs 100% uptime.

Now, assuming you get a crit every second, you get about a 6k heal during Briar's duration. Does a 6k heal REALLY justify the lower damage buff, lower proc chance AND lower uptime this set offers? I'd prefer if it had a 800 heal per second, had a 12 second CD, had a 15% proc chance and/or gave a slightly higher damage buff, in the range of 475-490.

Is that so imbalanced?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · January 2018

@Silver_Strider there is a huge difference between the sets you are comparing too, one is direct Critical Damage and the other is any critical damage. If scathing was any crit damage, it would be on every mag dps in the game.

Silver_Strider · January 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

@Silver_Strider there is a huge difference between the sets you are comparing too, one is direct Critical Damage and the other is any critical damage. If scathing was any crit damage, it would be on every mag dps in the game.

Even so, Scathing is still much more rewarding in its entirety in comparison to Briar

TimeDazzler · January 2018

Think if the cooldown was lowered from 15 to 12 it would be fine, could definitely use a buff though.

Toc de Malsvi · January 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

It doesn't need a buff, it performs almost identical to Hundings if you run 5 on the body. It can perform better if you run DW weapons. The healing bonus alone makes it more desirable than Hundings in many PVE applications. In my testing BriarHeart performed as much as 2% higher or lower than Hundings and was more prone to swings based on when it procced. Hundings offered a more stable output but has no extra healing benefit.

I think a more accurate comparison for Briarheart would be Scathing Mage.

Briar has a 10% proc chance vs Scathing's 20% chance

Briar gives 449 Weapon Damage vs Scathing's 516 Spell Damage

Briar has a 10 second duration with 15 second CD vs Scathing's 6 second duration and 6 second CD. Meaning potential 67% uptime vs 100% uptime.

Now, assuming you get a crit every second, you get about a 6k heal during Briar's duration. Does a 6k heal REALLY justify the lower damage buff, lower proc chance AND lower uptime this set offers? I'd prefer if it had a 800 heal per second, had a 12 second CD, had a 15% proc chance and/or gave a slightly higher damage buff, in the range of 475-490.

Is that so imbalanced?

No that wouldnt be an accurate comparison. Might as well compare it to a tanking set. Magicka is not balanced the same as stamina.

If Briarheart was buffed it would be hands down better than Hundings in every application. With no CD in PVE you would have 100% uptime. With a CD that matches the uptime you would still have almost 90% uptime.

As it is Briarheart is competitive with Hundings just purely on damage. While also having the additional benefit of extra heals.