STAM DK - Using Vicious Ophidian as main body set, with hundings on weps/jewlery?

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

I finally managed to get a full set og VO , on body pieces. Weapons and rings never dropped for me so im thinking of pairing it with hundings og spriggans ( on weps and jewlery ). My only goal with this setup is vet maelstrom arena. Need greenlight from you guys before i start golding out my pieces!

Toc de Malsvi · January 2019

Don't gold body pieces, utter waste of money.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Ok, but is that a good combination? VO mainbody and hundings og spriggans on wep/jewlery?

md3788 · January 2019

I like Briarheart better than hundings for front bar since the buff transfers on bar swap

md3788 · January 2019

md3788 wrote: »

I like Briarheart better than hundings for front bar since the buff transfers on bar swap

Actually, on a DK Hundings may be better. Not sure on what your crit chance is like. On a nightblade Briarheart gets very high uptime because of how often we crit.

eso_nya · January 2019

If u dont have access to major breach use night mothers gaze. If u have, hundings. Dont gold armor, waste of resources. Stick to crafted sets for weapons when u only need them to beat vma to grind weapons.

MashmalloMan · January 2019

My guess is you don't have a VMA bow yet so you would be using 2x 5 piece sets 24/7. If that's the case, use VO + Hundings with lover mundus stone instead of spriggans.

A lot of the mobs in the arena are 9.1k resistances and only a few bosses have 18.2k from what I recall. With CP and Lover you can get a solid 7-8k penetration. That being said you have major fracture in your kit if your using noxious breath.

Honestly, noxious is a bit annoying to use in VMA because you want to kill the mobs fast and the dot isn't that strong. I'd probably just use 4k penetration from cp and VO + Night Mothers Gaze to spread major fracture on every single mob you fight without having to worry about over penetrating with noxious breath, saving that skill time for something else too.

I play a stam sorc though, so I don't really know VMA builds for DK, VO + Night Mothers was my go to because I didn't have major fracture, but no matter what I'd drop spriggans as an option personally. Major fracture + CP would put you at the penetration you need.

Edit: You said you never got VO jewelry

I suppose that means Hundings/Night Mothers are off the table. If that's the case and you're looking for a good end game set. Veiled Herritance is severely under rated. It's cheap, tradable and carries it's buff so it's great as a secondary set when you inevitably get a VMA bow for back bar. I'm using it with relequen which is probably your end game goal, it's VERY close in dps to advancing yokeda and you can keep the buff up 100% of the time very easily.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

md3788 wrote: »

md3788 wrote: »

I like Briarheart better than hundings for front bar since the buff transfers on bar swap

Actually, on a DK Hundings may be better. Not sure on what your crit chance is like. On a nightblade Briarheart gets very high uptime because of how often we crit.

Ok thanks for the advice man. If i may ask, why not spriggans?

MashmalloMan · January 2019

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

md3788 wrote: »

md3788 wrote: »

I like Briarheart better than hundings for front bar since the buff transfers on bar swap

Actually, on a DK Hundings may be better. Not sure on what your crit chance is like. On a nightblade Briarheart gets very high uptime because of how often we crit.

Ok thanks for the advice man. If i may ask, why not spriggans?

Read my comment about penetration. You do not want to over penetrate and 9.1k is the mark you want to hit in VMA for the most part. Anything beyond that will be wasted for a lot of your fights.

Spriggans also only gives 3450 penetration, twice fanged serpent, a similar set gives 4300. The lover mundus stone gives about 4k penetration and if your not using major fracture in your skill kit, night mothers gaze gives major fracture which is 5.2k penetration. It's just kind of weaker in comparison if you only need 9.1k penetration.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Marshall1289 wrote: »

My guess is you don't have a VMA bow yet so you would be using 2x 5 piece sets 24/7. If that's the case, use VO + Hundings with lover mundus stone instead of spriggans.

A lot of the mobs in the arena are 9.1k resistances and only a few bosses have 18.2k from what I recall. With CP and Lover you can get a solid 7-8k penetration. That being said you have major fracture in your kit if your using noxious breath.

Honestly, noxious is a bit annoying to use in VMA because you want to kill the mobs fast and the dot isn't that strong. I'd probably just use 4k penetration from cp and VO + Night Mothers Gaze to spread major fracture on every single mob you fight without having to worry about over penetrating with noxious breath, saving that skill time for something else too.

I play a stam sorc though, so I don't really know VMA builds for DK, VO + Night Mothers was my go to because I didn't have major fracture, but no matter what I'd drop spriggans as an option personally. Major fracture + CP would put you at the penetration you need.

Edit: You said you never got VO jewelry I suppose that means Hundings/Night Mothers are off the table. If that's the case and you're looking for a good end game set. Veiled Herritance is severely under rated. It's cheap, tradable and carries it's buff so it's great as a secondary set when you inevitably get a VMA bow for back bar. I'm using it with relequen which is probably your end game goal, it's VERY close in dps to advancing yokeda and you can keep the buff up 100% of the time very easily.

thank you for your reply! I already have maelstrom bow, i want to get on leaderboards and do a flawless run and needed a better setup than hundings/spriggans. I actually have relequen, but only body pieces and no rings and neck. Ill check out the set you mentioned! I also happened to farm jewlery and weapons ( 2 swords ) of advancing yokuda, would that be even better to use?The traits are "healthy" though so thats not great.

So many choices. im so confused :S

MashmalloMan · January 2019

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

Marshall1289 wrote: »

My guess is you don't have a VMA bow yet so you would be using 2x 5 piece sets 24/7. If that's the case, use VO + Hundings with lover mundus stone instead of spriggans.

A lot of the mobs in the arena are 9.1k resistances and only a few bosses have 18.2k from what I recall. With CP and Lover you can get a solid 7-8k penetration. That being said you have major fracture in your kit if your using noxious breath.

Honestly, noxious is a bit annoying to use in VMA because you want to kill the mobs fast and the dot isn't that strong. I'd probably just use 4k penetration from cp and VO + Night Mothers Gaze to spread major fracture on every single mob you fight without having to worry about over penetrating with noxious breath, saving that skill time for something else too.

I play a stam sorc though, so I don't really know VMA builds for DK, VO + Night Mothers was my go to because I didn't have major fracture, but no matter what I'd drop spriggans as an option personally. Major fracture + CP would put you at the penetration you need.

Edit: You said you never got VO jewelry I suppose that means Hundings/Night Mothers are off the table. If that's the case and you're looking for a good end game set. Veiled Herritance is severely under rated. It's cheap, tradable and carries it's buff so it's great as a secondary set when you inevitably get a VMA bow for back bar. I'm using it with relequen which is probably your end game goal, it's VERY close in dps to advancing yokeda and you can keep the buff up 100% of the time very easily.

thank you for your reply! I already have maelstrom bow, i want to get on leaderboards and do a flawless run and needed a better setup than hundings/spriggans. I actually have relequen, but only body pieces and no rings and neck. Ill check out the set you mentioned! I also happened to farm jewlery and weapons ( 2 swords ) of advancing yokuda, would that be even better to use?The traits are "healthy" though so thats not great.

So many choices. im so confused :S

Problem is Night Mothers Gaze is crafted, jewelry might be hard to come by unless you get resources to do it yourself. I'd personally just use VO jewelry + 2 pieces VO body. When you get the crafted night mothers gaze, you can make heavy chest and legs if you wanted extra resistances/hp for a 5/2 or 6/1 setup.

For VMA, I'd drop Noxious Breath and use Night Mothers Gaze + VO body. I'd 100% still use a VMA bow. Placing endless hail on spawns as you memorize them is a great way to burn through mobs quickly. A lot of the mobs die from light attack -> poison injection where you can't reach them with something like Noxious anyway. Warrior mundus stone.

If you really like Noxious Breath and you want to use VMA bow (highly suggested) do not bother with AY. AY is a really good endgame set with Relequen where the focus is single target.

Instead use Veiled Heritance. The plus side vs night mothers is that it's a buff for yourself instead of a debuff. You will be able to have it working 100% of the time. It's really powerful for dynamic fights because it will proc from any damage while you're on your front bar. The added resistance isn't bad either.

Ravager is great too, but not as easy to proc, on a test dummy it's hard enough to get 50-60% uptime.

Static sets like hundings/spriggans are bad if you are using a VMA bow, you get much less effective uptime on the 5 piece bonuses. Briarheart is a cool set, but I've never really liked it because of that cooldown - might not be that bad, because the moments of CD could be moments where your waiting for mobs to spawn giving you the right burst in the right moments.

Edit: Oh also, swords kind of stink. I'd wait till you get AY daggers or axes for an axe/dagger or dagger/dagger setup for endgame dps.

Ragnarock41 · January 2019

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Don't gold body pieces, utter waste of money.

makes quite a difference when you use well-fittet/sturdy.

While I agree the difference is minimal for a PvE DD, in PvP golding out armor makes a noticeable difference, and as I said above certain traits get more benefits when you gold them out.

John_Falstaff · January 2019

md3788 wrote: »

Actually, on a DK Hundings may be better. Not sure on what your crit chance is like. On a nightblade Briarheart gets very high uptime because of how often we crit.

I don't think the crit chance is -that- marginally higher to make any difference for Briarheart.

I've tested side by side and yes, Hunding's is a bit better, but only because Briarheart is stat-wise strictly same or worse than Hunding's (and it takes perfect uptime on Briarheart just to reach Hunding's, which isn't possible in practice). But specifically for vMA, Briarheart has one positive side - the heal, and the one that also procs Troll King in addition, so OP can get solid healing ticks with that combination.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Marshall1289 wrote: »

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

Marshall1289 wrote: »

My guess is you don't have a VMA bow yet so you would be using 2x 5 piece sets 24/7. If that's the case, use VO + Hundings with lover mundus stone instead of spriggans.

A lot of the mobs in the arena are 9.1k resistances and only a few bosses have 18.2k from what I recall. With CP and Lover you can get a solid 7-8k penetration. That being said you have major fracture in your kit if your using noxious breath.

Honestly, noxious is a bit annoying to use in VMA because you want to kill the mobs fast and the dot isn't that strong. I'd probably just use 4k penetration from cp and VO + Night Mothers Gaze to spread major fracture on every single mob you fight without having to worry about over penetrating with noxious breath, saving that skill time for something else too.

I play a stam sorc though, so I don't really know VMA builds for DK, VO + Night Mothers was my go to because I didn't have major fracture, but no matter what I'd drop spriggans as an option personally. Major fracture + CP would put you at the penetration you need.

Edit: You said you never got VO jewelry I suppose that means Hundings/Night Mothers are off the table. If that's the case and you're looking for a good end game set. Veiled Herritance is severely under rated. It's cheap, tradable and carries it's buff so it's great as a secondary set when you inevitably get a VMA bow for back bar. I'm using it with relequen which is probably your end game goal, it's VERY close in dps to advancing yokeda and you can keep the buff up 100% of the time very easily.

thank you for your reply! I already have maelstrom bow, i want to get on leaderboards and do a flawless run and needed a better setup than hundings/spriggans. I actually have relequen, but only body pieces and no rings and neck. Ill check out the set you mentioned! I also happened to farm jewlery and weapons ( 2 swords ) of advancing yokuda, would that be even better to use?The traits are "healthy" though so thats not great.

So many choices. im so confused :S

Problem is Night Mothers Gaze is crafted, jewelry might be hard to come by unless you get resources to do it yourself. I'd personally just use VO jewelry + 2 pieces VO body. When you get the crafted night mothers gaze, you can make heavy chest and legs if you wanted extra resistances/hp for a 5/2 or 6/1 setup.

For VMA, I'd drop Noxious Breath and use Night Mothers Gaze + VO body. I'd 100% still use a VMA bow. Placing endless hail on spawns as you memorize them is a great way to burn through mobs quickly. A lot of the mobs die from light attack -> poison injection where you can't reach them with something like Noxious anyway. Warrior mundus stone.

If you really like Noxious Breath and you want to use VMA bow (highly suggested) do not bother with AY. AY is a really good endgame set with Relequen where the focus is single target.

Instead use Veiled Heritance. The plus side vs night mothers is that it's a buff for yourself instead of a debuff. You will be able to have it working 100% of the time. It's really powerful for dynamic fights because it will proc from any damage while you're on your front bar. The added resistance isn't bad either.

Ravager is great too, but not as easy to proc, on a test dummy it's hard enough to get 50-60% uptime.

Static sets like hundings/spriggans are bad if you are using a VMA bow, you get much less effective uptime on the 5 piece bonuses. Briarheart is a cool set, but I've never really liked it because of that cooldown - might not be that bad, because the moments of CD could be moments where your waiting for mobs to spawn giving you the right burst in the right moments.

Edit: Oh also, swords kind of stink. I'd wait till you get AY daggers or axes for an axe/dagger or dagger/dagger setup for endgame dps.

So bascially, since im using hundings on body i am gimping my strongest ability which is endeless hail - since the 5 piece bonus on it doesnt carry over to back bar? Ive never really understood the concept of "procsets" untill just now. I find it weird its first time im hearing about "veiled heritance" as by my new understanding it looks absolutely awsome. 10% change of 400 wep increase which carries over to the bow bar and boosts my endless hail ( 20% of my damage ) and all the other abilitites! Problem is i couldnt find ANY jewlery pieces of that set in any guildstores. Youre saying i shouldnt bother with AY, but isnt that set basically same as VH? Getting that jewlery and weapon drops in trials is a real pain. Ppl are buing drops for 150k etc.

Thanks for your advice, i already learned a lot

I am by the way a 8 trait crafter so its not a problem to craft gear.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Also. The 8% stamina cost reduction AND 30% speed increase is insanly important for vMA (right?) - i would want that on my body, so it applies no matter what bar im on right? My goal is to top the leaderboards for DK within a few years AND get Flawless conc within 2019.

John_Falstaff · January 2019

@Mariusghost84 , mind, by using Hunding's, you're not necessarily gimping your Hail, because Hail, like other ground AoEs, will recalculate its stats each damage tick depending on the bar you're on. So if you cast Hail, then swap bars to the front, next damage tick of the Hail after swap will already be derived from your front bar stats.

Veiled is a very good set, they go toe to toe with AY, and weapon damage is generally good to have in vMA because it affects self-healing (and you have to have incoming healing there). But Hunding's or Briarheart would also be fine. And yes, while it's not mandatory (since a lot of time you're on front bar), it would be nice to have VO active all the time no matter what bar you're on. You can run VO body and Briarheart in jewelry and weapons (daggers are available from side quest in Wrothgar, don't pay for them, just do the quest), or just craft Hunding's.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Mariusghost84 , mind, by using Hunding's, you're not necessarily gimping your Hail, because Hail, like other ground AoEs, will recalculate its stats each damage tick depending on the bar you're on. So if you cast Hail, then swap bars to the front, next damage tick of the Hail after swap will already be derived from your front bar stats.

Veiled is a very good set, they go toe to toe with AY, and weapon damage is generally good to have in vMA because it affects self-healing (and you have to have incoming healing there). But Hunding's or Briarheart would also be fine. And yes, while it's not mandatory (since a lot of time you're on front bar), it would be nice to have VO active all the time no matter what bar you're on. You can run VO body and Briarheart in jewelry and weapons (daggers are available from side quest in Wrothgar, don't pay for them, just do the quest), or just craft Hunding's.

I had no idea that the stats were recalcuated when i switch bars, thats kinda important to know! I should basically spent as little time as possible on my backbar outside of just reapplying my dots? From all the sets that have been mentioned i kinda like Briarheart the most, for the extra healing - which is important in vMA. Come to think of it i got 1 piece of VO (neck) - so i could get 1 birarheart on body and 2 jewlery, and still be able to have the 3 set bonus while on second bar - sounds legit?

Thanks for the tip about the Q!

vesselwiththepestle · January 2019

When you go for Veiled Heritance, you have to transmute the jewelry traits (like you would have with AY).

Flawless is easier than top scores. You can watch the current #1 on PC/EU on Youtube (https://youtube.com/watch?v=M8vUwWeeFww), but it's a mag dk. No idea what's the record for stam dk.

When you are running for the #1 position, you will probably try out different setups anyway. VO body and Briarheart front-bar is definitely a good setup, you can do flawless with it and 500k+ score runs. But you can do that with VO front-bar and Hunding's body or even VO body and Spriggan's front bar, too. I don't know what 600k+ score Stam DKs are actually wearing. Edit: Nvm, they seem to prefer VO and NMG, but interestingly Slimecraw instead of Velidreth. I think I will give the latter a try first, I really don't like crafting NMG when I can just use noxious.

John_Falstaff · January 2019

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

I had no idea that the stats were recalcuated when i switch bars, thats kinda important to know! I should basically spent as little time as possible on my backbar outside of just reapplying my dots? From all the sets that have been mentioned i kinda like Briarheart the most, for the extra healing - which is important in vMA. Come to think of it i got 1 piece of VO (neck) - so i could get 1 birarheart on body and 2 jewlery, and still be able to have the 3 set bonus while on second bar - sounds legit?

Thanks for the tip about the Q!

Mind, it's subject to layout of your skill bars, but generally yes, you want to swap back, land Hail, Caltrops, put Poison Injection into something, maybe buff yourself (if you, say, have Vigor and/or wings/hardened/something else there) and switch to front bar where you'll be dealing direct damage and reaping the benefits of having higher stats. Mind, Briarheart healing isn't huge by itself (it has internal cooldown of 1 second, I think), but for one it procs Troll King if you run it (take a closer look at it, can be a great help in vMA if you're struggling, but offensive sets work fine too), and for another, things add up - vigor, healing morph of twin slashes, your own recovery.

Mixing and matching works just fine too, I run VO in jewelry and two body pieces, nothing prevents you from running Briarheart in one jewelry, a body piece and weapons.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

When you go for Veiled Heritance, you have to transmute the jewelry traits (like you would have with AY).

Flawless is easier than top scores. You can watch the current #1 on PC/EU on Youtube (https://youtube.com/watch?v=M8vUwWeeFww), but it's a mag dk. No idea what's the record for stam dk.

When you are running for the #1 position, you will probably try out different setups anyway. VO body and Briarheart front-bar is definitely a good setup, you can do flawless with it and 500k+ score runs. But you can do that with VO front-bar and Hunding's body or even VO body and Spriggan's front bar, too. I don't know what 600k+ score Stam DKs are actually wearing. Edit: Nvm, they seem to prefer VO and NMG, but interestingly Slimecraw instead of Velidreth. I think I will give the latter a try first, I really don't like crafting NMG when I can just use noxious.

That vid was insane. Based on what you and others said i decided to go for VO body and Briarheart frontbar, IF i manage to buy it! It will take me a good part of the year to get to 500k and flawless, but im gonna put in work and somehow pull it off. Thank you for the insight. I to rather use noxious that NMG.

ochsinator · January 2019

So I literally have the same set up I have tested dummy parse with VO and spriggans and VO with hundings and I get about 3k more with spriggans than hundings I think people underestimate the extra stam and penetration.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

ochsinator wrote: »

So I literally have the same set up I have tested dummy parse with VO and spriggans and VO with hundings and I get about 3k more with spriggans than hundings I think people underestimate the extra stam and penetration.

Ah man. Now im back to being confused again. What numbers did u get exactly? Have you tried briarthorn aswell?

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2019

When Solo, penetration is generally a better stat to boost than weapon damage for DPS, because it is very unlikely you are anywhere near the cap when solo. So it is very unsurprising that people claim they get better dummy DPS with spriggans over hundings. Now if you are in a full raid with other players supplying penetration to your group, the opposite is going to be true.

Truthfully, either will work just fine in VMA. If you arent clearing in under 45 minutes, you wont notice the difference and hundings is far easier to get ideal traits for weapons than spriggans. Hundings daggers in good traits are definitely better than spriggans non daggers in bad traits.

A lot of people prefer briarheart as its basically hundings with a self heal. Especially when learning VMA, the heal is more important than a bit more damage. Another option (better pen than spriggans) is night mothers gaze, but that is only true if you are running a class without major fracture. In other words for a sorc, templar, or DK (that doesnt run noxious breath), NMG is acutally your best bet. On NBs and Wardens it is not worth considering.

VO is the real game changer in VMA, so as long as you have that, any of these sets are going to be just fine.

Also, you talk about switching bars and stats. Certianly some sets are better than others for being only on the front bar. With a set like hundings, you will lose the buff on your back bar, same is true for spriggans. A set like briarheart might actually serve you a bit better as being a front bar only set because the buff will carry over when you swap (you just cant proc the buff from your back bar). Same goes for night mothers. Truthfully, VO is a great front bar only set, but farming 2 daggers is bit of pain to say the least.

MashmalloMan · January 2019

A lot to unpack. AY is a great set, but requires you to be in melee range to keep the buff active 100% of the time. In VMA you want to burn through mobs as quick as possible, that means you're bow bar becomes really important. You don't have a lot of time to worry about building 5 stacks on AY. AY + Relequen is an end game top dps build for bosses and trials.

NMG has a long debuff duration and procs easily just by swapping to front bar, reason to use it over Noxious Breath is once again the fact that you need to be in melee range. It's really preference though. As a stam sorc without major fracture or minor berserk the choice is easy for VMA. VO + NMG + Slimecraw, setup cp to about 3820 for penetration to hit 9.1k.

Penetration is a really strong stat cutting through 1% dmg mitigation every 500 resist in pve, but it has a cap. A lot of the bosses and mobs in VMA have 9.1k resistances and some have 18.2k. Having more than 9.1k penetration is wasted in a lot of match ups for the arena so I use 9.1k penetration as my benchmark so it works through the entire run.

Skills in the game update dmg and stats depending on the active bar you are on but uptime on stats is still important for back bar as you still rely on it for many scenarios where you light attack - poison inject mobs from afar. You are not going to run in to melee range all over the arena. Hundings rage and spriggans are just bad choices for VMA as front bar sets imo as you spend a lot of time on the back bar where the sets aren't active.

Veiled, Briarheart and NMG (no noxious) are your best options for front bar sets. The heal on Briarheart is small but nice and the CD downtime is less of an issue due to all of the downtime in between rounds and spawns.

In 8 seconds of the buff you may be able to kill all the mobs and the remaining 4 seconds are spent waiting for another mob to come. Basically gives you nice burst potential. Hundings on paper is close statistically, but burst can be rewarding in a lot of scenarios of this game and the heal is free.

My point about NMG being crafted is NMG crafted jewelry is harder to come by if you planned on using only VO body parts. I'd get VO jewelry if anything to not worry about that problem.

For veiled heritance, it's a very reliably consistant set. If you're stil interested, you need to start using Tamriel Trade Centre. It is an in game add-on that documents listings. They have a website where you can search for items. It can be difficult because if something gets sold as it may still show on the website for awhile before being removed. If you're on console maybe the set is rarer there and I can imagine it would be hard to find in shops.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade/SearchResult?ItemID=&SearchType=Sell&ItemNamePattern=veiled+heritance&ItemCategory1ID=1&ItemCategory2ID=6&ItemCategory3ID=&ItemTraitID=&ItemQualityID=3&IsChampionPoint=false&LevelMin=&LevelMax=&MasterWritVoucherMin=&MasterWritVoucherMax=&AmountMin=&AmountMax=&PriceMin=&PriceMax=

But yeah you can't go wrong with VO + Briarheart.

Slimecraw is strong because 8% minor berserk isn't available in your kit. A lot of mobs are killed by being on your bow and dots which it will buff really well.

Other good options are Troll King for crazy survival early on. Velidreth for the dmg stat and a strong burst proc, aiming it will take getting use to and is hit or miss for far away mobs but hits hard. My favourite would be Valkyn Skoria, incredibly reliable, works great at range and is just super cool looking. Not having any fire cp or spell penetration means it will probably hit around 7-8k though where as a mag user can get 10-12k out of it.

El_Borracho · January 2019

VO + Hundlings is a solid combo for things like vMA, vBRP, and vDSA. Though, its preferable to do Hundlings body and VO weapons/jewelry only because the cost to craft Hundlings jewelry is so high. But you can run it in reverse and be okay. Just make sure you have something for penetration, like Noxious Breath.

And don't gold out VO body pieces.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Marshall1289 wrote: »

A lot to unpack. AY is a great set, but requires you to be in melee range to keep the buff active 100% of the time. In VMA you want to burn through mobs as quick as possible, that means you're bow bar becomes really important. You don't have a lot of time to worry about building 5 stacks on AY. AY + Relequen is an end game top dps build for bosses and trials.

NMG has a long debuff duration and procs easily just by swapping to front bar, reason to use it over Noxious Breath is once again the fact that you need to be in melee range. It's really preference though. As a stam sorc without major fracture or minor berserk the choice is easy for VMA. VO + NMG + Slimecraw, setup cp to about 3820 for penetration to hit 9.1k.

Penetration is a really strong stat cutting through 1% dmg mitigation every 500 resist in pve, but it has a cap. A lot of the bosses and mobs in VMA have 9.1k resistances and some have 18.2k. Having more than 9.1k penetration is wasted in a lot of match ups for the arena so I use 9.1k penetration as my benchmark so it works through the entire run.

Skills in the game update dmg and stats depending on the active bar you are on but uptime on stats is still important for back bar as you still rely on it for many scenarios where you light attack - poison inject mobs from afar. You are not going to run in to melee range all over the arena. Hundings rage and spriggans are just bad choices for VMA as front bar sets imo as you spend a lot of time on the back bar where the sets aren't active.

Veiled, Briarheart and NMG (no noxious) are your best options for front bar sets. The heal on Briarheart is small but nice and the CD downtime is less of an issue due to all of the downtime in between rounds and spawns.

In 8 seconds of the buff you may be able to kill all the mobs and the remaining 4 seconds are spent waiting for another mob to come. Basically gives you nice burst potential. Hundings on paper is close statistically, but burst can be rewarding in a lot of scenarios of this game and the heal is free.

My point about NMG being crafted is NMG crafted jewelry is harder to come by if you planned on using only VO body parts. I'd get VO jewelry if anything to not worry about that problem.

For veiled heritance, it's a very reliably consistant set. If you're stil interested, you need to start using Tamriel Trade Centre. It is an in game add-on that documents listings. They have a website where you can search for items. It can be difficult because if something gets sold as it may still show on the website for awhile before being removed. If you're on console maybe the set is rarer there and I can imagine it would be hard to find in shops.

https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade/SearchResult?ItemID=&SearchType=Sell&ItemNamePattern=veiled+heritance&ItemCategory1ID=1&ItemCategory2ID=6&ItemCategory3ID=&ItemTraitID=&ItemQualityID=3&IsChampionPoint=false&LevelMin=&LevelMax=&MasterWritVoucherMin=&MasterWritVoucherMax=&AmountMin=&AmountMax=&PriceMin=&PriceMax=

But yeah you can't go wrong with VO + Briarheart.

Slimecraw is strong because 8% minor berserk isn't available in your kit. A lot of mobs are killed by being on your bow and dots which it will buff really well.

Other good options are Troll King for crazy survival early on. Velidreth for the dmg stat and a strong burst proc, aiming it will take getting use to and is hit or miss for far away mobs but hits hard. My favourite would be Valkyn Skoria, incredibly reliable, works great at range and is just super cool looking. Not having any fire cp or spell penetration means it will probably hit around 7-8k though where as a mag user can get 10-12k out of it.

Your insight is much appriciated, i read your post carefully and although im not gonna comment on everything, as i am at work , i took it all into concideration. I ended up going with VO(body) and Briarheart mainbar. Last thing im not quite sure of are the type of weapons i should buy, the daggers will boost my crit change and the proc of Biraheart - so i asume its the best choice? The price of the daggers is 750k verson like 20k for any other types of weapons, i DO have the cash but its an INSANE amount to pay. What would you reccomend me to get a hold of?

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

When Solo, penetration is generally a better stat to boost than weapon damage for DPS, because it is very unlikely you are anywhere near the cap when solo. So it is very unsurprising that people claim they get better dummy DPS with spriggans over hundings. Now if you are in a full raid with other players supplying penetration to your group, the opposite is going to be true.

Truthfully, either will work just fine in VMA. If you arent clearing in under 45 minutes, you wont notice the difference and hundings is far easier to get ideal traits for weapons than spriggans. Hundings daggers in good traits are definitely better than spriggans non daggers in bad traits.

A lot of people prefer briarheart as its basically hundings with a self heal. Especially when learning VMA, the heal is more important than a bit more damage. Another option (better pen than spriggans) is night mothers gaze, but that is only true if you are running a class without major fracture. In other words for a sorc, templar, or DK (that doesnt run noxious breath), NMG is acutally your best bet. On NBs and Wardens it is not worth considering.

VO is the real game changer in VMA, so as long as you have that, any of these sets are going to be just fine.

Also, you talk about switching bars and stats. Certianly some sets are better than others for being only on the front bar. With a set like hundings, you will lose the buff on your back bar, same is true for spriggans. A set like briarheart might actually serve you a bit better as being a front bar only set because the buff will carry over when you swap (you just cant proc the buff from your back bar). Same goes for night mothers. Truthfully, VO is a great front bar only set, but farming 2 daggers is bit of pain to say the least.

Perfect. Now im a lot more comfortable with going VO body and Briar. However, you wrote that VO is a great front bar only set - but then i wont get the speed increase and 8% reduction if i kill stuff while on backbar? I dont quite get why its a good front bar set, but i know alcasts build suggests the same. I will continue to farm them but i would love to have that explained

Also, are double daggers the only way to go? Im gonna buy briar daggers but they are MAD expencive compared to maces and swords etc. ( 750k ).

John_Falstaff · January 2019

@Mariusghost84 , don't buy Briarheart daggers. There's a side quest in Wrothgar (called "Where Loyalty Lies" if memory serves) that gives a dagger - Materre's Bodkin - as a reward. Do the quest twice on different characters or grab a friend who doesn't need that dagger and do the quest together. You have a pair. Same dagger is sold for cheap at guild traders if you don't want to bother, you can get it for a few thousand gold.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Mariusghost84 , don't buy Briarheart daggers. There's a side quest in Wrothgar (called "Where Loyalty Lies" if memory serves) that gives a dagger - Materre's Bodkin - as a reward. Do the quest twice on different characters or grab a friend who doesn't need that dagger and do the quest together. You have a pair. Same dagger is sold for cheap at guild traders if you don't want to bother, you can get it for a few thousand gold.

Thing is though, those quest daggers arnt infused are they? Ive heard infused is by far the better choice right now?

John_Falstaff · January 2019

@Mariusghost84 , yes, they're not infused (they're powered if I'm not mistaken), but hoarding 100 transmute crystals is simpler than paying an arm and a leg for naturally infused Briarheart daggers. A week of doing non-DLC vet pledges will give theoretical minimum of 28 crystals (in reality will give more). Pug nHRC, nAA, nSO and nCR once during this week (nAS is also easy), and you have 20-25 more from weekly coffers. And if you do PvP, there's plenty to be had from there as well.

Mariusghost84 · January 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Mariusghost84 , yes, they're not infused (they're powered if I'm not mistaken), but hoarding 100 transmute crystals is simpler than paying an arm and a leg for naturally infused Briarheart daggers. A week of doing non-DLC vet pledges will give theoretical minimum of 28 crystals (in reality will give more). Pug nHRC, nAA, nSO and nCR once during this week (nAS is also easy), and you have 20-25 more from weekly coffers. And if you do PvP, there's plenty to be had from there as well.

OK thanks for this tip! Do you by any chance know what traits i should be using? Are both indused the way to go, or should i nirnhone or go for crit?