Best SDK sets?

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

Outside of Advancing Yokeda and Relequen what are the best sets to run on SDK? I'm still running what was pretty much one of the best setups 11 months ago before I quit which was Mephalas, Sunderflame and Hundings

Finviuswe · December 2018

i Ran em all man lol. You saw me.

starkerealm · December 2018

Sunderflame is far less appealing post-Summerset. It still works, but the debuff has been changed to minor breach and minor fracture. That said, it's damage has been increased.

Sheer Venom is oddly amusing for a StamKnight, though not the best outgoing damage.

EDIT: If you're wanting to chase, "the best," Advancing Yokudan Weapons and Jewelry + a Maelstrom Bow (if you're not using a melee backbar) is probably the way to go.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

starkerealm wrote: »

Sunderflame is far less appealing post-Summerset. It still works, but the debuff has been changed to minor breach and minor fracture. That said, it's damage has been increased.

Sheer Venom is oddly amusing for a StamKnight, though not the best outgoing damage.

EDIT: If you're wanting to chase, "the best," Advancing Yokudan Weapons and Jewelry + a Maelstrom Bow (if you're not using a melee backbar) is probably the way to go.

Advancing Yokeda is dropped in trials though? Looking for something I can use in the mean time to get the BiS sets

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2018

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Sunderflame is far less appealing post-Summerset. It still works, but the debuff has been changed to minor breach and minor fracture. That said, it's damage has been increased.

Sheer Venom is oddly amusing for a StamKnight, though not the best outgoing damage.

EDIT: If you're wanting to chase, "the best," Advancing Yokudan Weapons and Jewelry + a Maelstrom Bow (if you're not using a melee backbar) is probably the way to go.

Advancing Yokeda is dropped in trials though? Looking for something I can use in the mean time to get the BiS sets

What you have will work fine, not too many other sets that will beat them, though if you are concerned about redundancy with sunderflame now, like you play with a stamplar or something, swap out that for spriggans.

John_Falstaff · December 2018

@Ohhgrizyyy , Hunding's keeps being a pretty solid set, as does Spriggan's, if we're about more readily accessible sets. Briarheart is good. Veiled Heritance (overland from Auridon) yet better, it's close to AY (but just like with AY, will have to run it in weapons and jewelry and retrait jewelry from healthy, because it's a heavy set). From proc sets, oddly, Unfathomable Darkness performs well.

Of monster sets - Velidreth is all the rage now, people also run Stormfist with great success. I found that Kra'gh performs slightly better on a parse (but less handy in actual content because of small hitbox).

If I was pressed to try and come up with something that maximizes damage without using trial sets, I'd probably think about Veiled Heritance + Spriggan's + Velidreth/Kra'gh. If there's no Maelstrom/Master bow, would also think of trying Veiled + Leviathan (which is numerically pretty much identical to AY, just the effect doesn't carry over bar swaps, which would be a problem with running vMA back), though yet to try that combination.

Hamish999 · December 2018

I run Vicious Ophidian, Leviathan and Selene's on my Khajiit Stam DK.

I have VO jewels and weapons which means I have the Leviathan crit buff on both bars

starkerealm · December 2018

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Sunderflame is far less appealing post-Summerset. It still works, but the debuff has been changed to minor breach and minor fracture. That said, it's damage has been increased.

Sheer Venom is oddly amusing for a StamKnight, though not the best outgoing damage.

EDIT: If you're wanting to chase, "the best," Advancing Yokudan Weapons and Jewelry + a Maelstrom Bow (if you're not using a melee backbar) is probably the way to go.

Advancing Yokeda is dropped in trials though? Looking for something I can use in the mean time to get the BiS sets

Yeah, but if you're looking to trade up, that's basically it. I mean, I run Hundings + VO, it's solid. Actually, another viable option for you if you're so inclined. Also, if you don't own Summerset, AY is a bit less useful, because it requires retraiting the jewelry.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Ohhgrizyyy , Hunding's keeps being a pretty solid set, as does Spriggan's, if we're about more readily accessible sets. Briarheart is good. Veiled Heritance (overland from Auridon) yet better, it's close to AY (but just like with AY, will have to run it in weapons and jewelry and retrait jewelry from healthy, because it's a heavy set). From proc sets, oddly, Unfathomable Darkness performs well.

Of monster sets - Velidreth is all the rage now, people also run Stormfist with great success. I found that Kra'gh performs slightly better on a parse (but less handy in actual content because of small hitbox).

If I was pressed to try and come up with something that maximizes damage without using trial sets, I'd probably think about Veiled Heritance + Spriggan's + Velidreth/Kra'gh. If there's no Maelstrom/Master bow, would also think of trying Veiled + Leviathan (which is numerically pretty much identical to AY, just the effect doesn't carry over bar swaps, which would be a problem with running vMA back), though yet to try that combination.

Yea I have a gold nirn maelstrom bow

John_Falstaff · December 2018

@Ohhgrizyyy , mm-m, then you'd want to go for front bar sets with effects that carry over bar swaps; I'd go for Veiled Heritance in weapons and transmuted jewelry. (By the way, infused trait is now also carried over bar swaps, which is why you're better off with infused bow now - Hail will proc the bow bar glyph with infused potency and cooldown no matter what bar you're on.) Briarheart is also not bad and has a nice little heal on it, plus there's no need to transmute (jewelry is expensive though and comes in three possible traits, so watch out for it).

For the full-time set, Relequen is really strong and in terms of a parse, nothing can match it, but realistically, you'd be fine pairing front bar VH or Briarheart with Spriggan's, Hunding's, maybe Leviathan; of proc sets, could try Unfathomable, Red Mountain. Hard to say which is strongest; I'd try Spriggan's first. (TFS is Spriggan's 'big brother', but I'm trying not to suggest trial sets.)

starkerealm · December 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

(TFS is Spriggan's 'big brother', but I'm trying not to suggest trial sets.)

@John_Falstaff, I wouldn't describe it that way. Spriggans trades 850 pen for 100% uptime, with Max Stam (~1k), instead of weapon crit (833.) The advantage with TFS is you can use it with a broken backbar (a vMA bow, for example.) Unlike Reli, there's no timer on the spin-up, so with enough DoTs (something the DK excells at), you can recover a lost stack basically instantly. With Spriggans, the back bar simply breaks the set until you switch back over. Also, Spriggans costs you weapon damage while broken (129) while TFS breaks the weapon crit bonus.

So, the difference between the sets comes down to more about how skilled you are as a player. If you can keep DoTs on things (again, we're talking about a DK here, so that shouldn't be an issue), TFS is better. If you're going to spend a lot of time on the broken bar, though, it turns into a toss up. If you're new to the game, and aren't using a lot of DoTs, and don't have a broken back bar, then Spriggans will be better for you.

vesselwiththepestle · December 2018

If you want to farm Relequen in normal Cloudrest+0, Hundings+Sunderflame is ok.

John_Falstaff · December 2018

@starkerealm , in the given context, we're currently talking about wearing TFS in body pieces, for full time effect regardless of current bar. And I'd assume that, since the topic starter has vMA bow, he probably knows how to keep DoTs on things. ^^

starkerealm · December 2018

@John_Falstaff, given the context, I kinda feel TFS body is a mistake. The set's major strength is that you can flip it to back bar. The only way I see that not being ideal is if the other set is AY, or another non-medium set.

John_Falstaff · December 2018

@starkerealm , yes, I probably wouldn't use it in weapons if I have access to AY or VH, but we're under constraints of OP's situation, and it's likely that he may run VH weapons as currently strongest non-trial alternative, so that leaves little choice, can only run Spriggan's or TFS on body that way. ^^

And frankly, I feel that even frontbarred TFS would outperform Spriggan's in any practical PvE use. Spriggan's 5pc effect turns off as soon as one goes to back bar. TFS has the three seconds trail, so here's three more seconds of (stronger) 5pc effect uptime. Now after swapping to front bar, Spriggan's in full effect; so, to outperform it, a necessary condition would be for TFS build-up time to be equal or less than 3 seconds. Even with just Hail ticking twice a second (if Hail's not running, why did we even bother having bow bar?), build-up is bound to be less than two seconds (Hail and a couple of light weaves). So it likely will outperform in any case.

But that said, OP isn't hunting for trial sets now, and Spriggan's is strong; if he were, could very well go straight for Relequen since it's so stupidly easy and quick to farm. Talk for another topic though. ^^

starkerealm · December 2018

@John_Falstaff, and @Ohhgrizyyy, if you can clear vMA, normal trials should be pretty painless with a coordinated team. Meaning stuff like TFS, or VO isn't out of reach. Also, if your goal is trials and vet dungeon clears, then Reliquen is a pretty good pick as well, coming from Cloudreach.

So, really, trial sets probably aren't out of reach right now.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

starkerealm wrote: »

@John_Falstaff, and @Ohhgrizyyy, if you can clear vMA, normal trials should be pretty painless with a coordinated team. Meaning stuff like TFS, or VO isn't out of reach. Also, if your goal is trials and vet dungeon clears, then Reliquen is a pretty good pick as well, coming from Cloudreach.

So, really, trial sets probably aren't out of reach right now.

They aren't but I want to get a bit more updated build before I head into vet trials. I'm literally rocking Sunder, Hundings and Mephalas right now which was great before Dragon Bones patch which was after I quit and from what I've seen they've buffed light attacks alot so heavy attack rotations for SDK aren't very great right now and 2 of my sets are based around heavy attacks.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2018

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

You drop lover for warrior then. No chance for over pen.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

You drop lover for warrior then. No chance for over pen.

Hmm. Maybe so, I just know back then if you had major fracture, crushing, sunder, night mothers and your points into CP you actually overpen'd with TFS. Maybe somethings changed that I'm not aware of. Cause I actually ran Warrior mundus

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2018

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

You drop lover for warrior then. No chance for over pen.

Hmm. Maybe so, I just know back then if you had major fracture, crushing, sunder, night mothers and your points into CP you actually overpen'd with TFS. Maybe somethings changed that I'm not aware of. Cause I actually ran Warrior mundus

Major fracture, 5280

Minor fracture, 1320

Infused crusher, 2,108

Alkosh, 3010

Sunder is minor fracture and nightmothers is major now, so forget about those.

5280+1320+2108+3010= 11,718 and mobs have 18200 armor, meaning

18200-11,718= 6,482

You have 6482 armor on the target in perfect conditions. Though this is only able to be done by the best. Most of the time you will have 7-10k armor on the mobs you need to pen. Lover with 7 divines is 4016. Tfs is 4300.

vesselwiththepestle · December 2018

I recommend farming Relequen in normal Cloudrest +0 first. Wear it on the body. It's fast and easy to get, Sunderflame and Bindings is good enough for normal Cloudrest. Except you want to go right for Perfected Relequen. In that case IMO getting VO first would be a good idea.

When you don't have Relequen anyway, you don't lose much dps with a heavy attack rotation on stam dk. Maybe it's even
stronger. If you aren't max cp You might get into trouble sustaining light attack roa, which is another advantage of heavy attack roation.

You could replace Mephala with Velidreth for max dps. Stormfist is good too (if your having sustain troubles) or even Valkyn Skoria (if you need more health, Stamdk has enough dots do make good use for it).

If you need sets for Vet Trials I wouldn't wear a Penetration Set. Spriggans is great for soloing and maybe group dungeons. I'd go weapon damage or crit. So combine two out of Hundings, Briarheart, Veiled Heritance and Leviathan. Because you have already a vma bow I'd use Hundings on body and Briarheart or Veiled Heritance on Weapons. You can easily acquire a Briarheart dagger from a 10 minute quest. Do this on two characters, buy some jewelry, combine it with your Hundings and your good to go.

Remember to change your CP. Use Lover Mundus and put like 20-30 points in Physical Penetration.

Night mother and Sunderland got changed to debuffs. They dont stack with other sources of minor and major fracture. Thus you need the lover mundus. Or you stay with warrior or even thief and go for spriggans/tfs.

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

You drop lover for warrior then. No chance for over pen.

Hmm. Maybe so, I just know back then if you had major fracture, crushing, sunder, night mothers and your points into CP you actually overpen'd with TFS. Maybe somethings changed that I'm not aware of. Cause I actually ran Warrior mundus

Major fracture, 5280

Minor fracture, 1320

Infused crusher, 2,108

Alkosh, 3010

Sunder is minor fracture and nightmothers is major now, so forget about those.

5280+1320+2108+3010= 11,718 and mobs have 18200 armor, meaning

18200-11,718= 6,482

You have 6482 armor on the target in perfect conditions. Though this is only able to be done by the best. Most of the time you will have 7-10k armor on the mobs you need to pen. Lover with 7 divines is 4016. Tfs is 4300.

Did Sunder used to not count as minor fracture or did night mothers use to not count as major? Cause I dont remember that

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

I recommend farming Relequen in normal Cloudrest +0 first. Wear it on the body. It's fast and easy to get, Sunderflame and Bindings is good enough for normal Cloudrest. Except you want to go right for Perfected Relequen. In that case IMO getting VO first would be a good idea.

When you don't have Relequen anyway, you don't lose much dps with a heavy attack rotation on stam dk. Maybe it's even
stronger. If you aren't max cp You might get into trouble sustaining light attack roa, which is another advantage of heavy attack roation.

You could replace Mephala with Velidreth for max dps. Stormfist is good too (if your having sustain troubles) or even Valkyn Skoria (if you need more health, Stamdk has enough dots do make good use for it).

If you need sets for Vet Trials I wouldn't wear a Penetration Set. Spriggans is great for soloing and maybe group dungeons. I'd go weapon damage or crit. So combine two out of Hundings, Briarheart, Veiled Heritance and Leviathan. Because you have already a vma bow I'd use Hundings on body and Briarheart or Veiled Heritance on Weapons. You can easily acquire a Briarheart dagger from a 10 minute quest. Do this on two characters, buy some jewelry, combine it with your Hundings and your good to go.

Remember to change your CP. Use Lover Mundus and put like 20-30 points in Physical Penetration.

Night mother and Sunderland got changed to debuffs. They dont stack with other sources of minor and major fracture. Thus you need the lover mundus. Or you stay with warrior or even thief and go for spriggans/tfs.

Amazing, This is the type of answer I was looking for. So basically long story short. Hundings/Briar combined with Velidreth or Stormfist. Lover mundus and stick with this for trials until I get AY and Relequen

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

I recommend farming Relequen in normal Cloudrest +0 first. Wear it on the body. It's fast and easy to get, Sunderflame and Bindings is good enough for normal Cloudrest. Except you want to go right for Perfected Relequen. In that case IMO getting VO first would be a good idea.

When you don't have Relequen anyway, you don't lose much dps with a heavy attack rotation on stam dk. Maybe it's even
stronger. If you aren't max cp You might get into trouble sustaining light attack roa, which is another advantage of heavy attack roation.

You could replace Mephala with Velidreth for max dps. Stormfist is good too (if your having sustain troubles) or even Valkyn Skoria (if you need more health, Stamdk has enough dots do make good use for it).

If you need sets for Vet Trials I wouldn't wear a Penetration Set. Spriggans is great for soloing and maybe group dungeons. I'd go weapon damage or crit. So combine two out of Hundings, Briarheart, Veiled Heritance and Leviathan. Because you have already a vma bow I'd use Hundings on body and Briarheart or Veiled Heritance on Weapons. You can easily acquire a Briarheart dagger from a 10 minute quest. Do this on two characters, buy some jewelry, combine it with your Hundings and your good to go.

Remember to change your CP. Use Lover Mundus and put like 20-30 points in Physical Penetration.

Night mother and Sunderland got changed to debuffs. They dont stack with other sources of minor and major fracture. Thus you need the lover mundus. Or you stay with warrior or even thief and go for spriggans/tfs.

And the new meta is also infused everything right? Infused bow with weapon dmg enchant, Infused daggers with poison and stam regen? And infused or bloodthirsty jewelry?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · December 2018

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ohhgrizyyy wrote: »

And unless its changed about 11-12 months ago TFS wasn't really great outside of 4-man content, vMA and parses simply because in trial groups you over pen'd and we all know that means you're technically losing dps.

You drop lover for warrior then. No chance for over pen.

Hmm. Maybe so, I just know back then if you had major fracture, crushing, sunder, night mothers and your points into CP you actually overpen'd with TFS. Maybe somethings changed that I'm not aware of. Cause I actually ran Warrior mundus

Major fracture, 5280

Minor fracture, 1320

Infused crusher, 2,108

Alkosh, 3010

Sunder is minor fracture and nightmothers is major now, so forget about those.

5280+1320+2108+3010= 11,718 and mobs have 18200 armor, meaning

18200-11,718= 6,482

You have 6482 armor on the target in perfect conditions. Though this is only able to be done by the best. Most of the time you will have 7-10k armor on the mobs you need to pen. Lover with 7 divines is 4016. Tfs is 4300.

Did Sunder used to not count as minor fracture or did night mothers use to not count as major? Cause I dont remember that

Sunder and NMG were unique debuffs. Sunder was ~3k and NMG was around 2.7k. so yes. They were not the named buffs they are now.

This change made mauls more attractive and people made switch from warrior to lover.

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO · December 2018

For those of us that isn't all that familiar with what various armor and weapon sets used to be called: The Advancing Yokeda set has been renamed to Berserking Warrior. Looking up the stats is a whole lot easier if you spell out the current set name, instead of using old names and/or cryptic abbreviations.

John_Falstaff · December 2018

@ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO , bug source of confusion is that pieces are still named "...of Advancing Yokeda", just name of the set in the tooltip have changed.

And @Ohhgrizyyy , yes, if you want to maximize single target, then double infused front bar works best. Infused bow too since now area DoTs proc enchantments from the weapons they were launched from, e.g. Hail will keep proccing infused glyph on the bow even after bar swap. Mind, if you want more AoE damage, nirnhoned main hand works too.

As for layout of enchants, it's a little game of tradeoffs. Weapon damage on bow gives most control over where damage goes. Poison on bow gives highest damage. Absorb stamina (which now properly deals physical, not magic damage) on bow gives most sustain. For me (I'm stamDK khajiit) the difference was within ~1k damage, so it's not something to sweat over.

MajBludd · December 2018

Is this for pve or pvp?

Ohhgrizyyy · December 2018

MajBludd wrote: »

Is this for pve or pvp?

PvE

starkerealm · December 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO , bug source of confusion is that pieces are still named "...of Advancing Yokeda", just name of the set in the tooltip have changed.

Just like Mending is technically, "healing mage," but you tend to confuse more people by calling it that.