Stx wrote: »

Kadoin wrote: »

Anything a hybrid can use, ZOS is making sure buffs pure stam and mag builds far more ...

The very nature of being a hybrid means you will NEVER perform as well as a pure. The whole point of being a hybrid is being a swiss army knife, or to expand your toolkit to be more versatile than a pure.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

I wanted to open up a discussion on the state of hybrid pvp builds in Greymoor that have seen 2 major buffs I get into near the bottom half of this post if you want to skip to the TLDR. Mainly having to do with Malacath Band, Stuhns Favor and tri-glyh enchantments. This is not exactly a build, just pointing out what I think would be the best options for Hybrids to use in Greymoor when picking things in their build to get maximum effectiveness while having no need for Pelinal's Aptitude and Medium Armor.

Thoughts on what to consider about making a hybrid build:

Typically, Hybrid builds relied on the set "Pelinal's Aptitude", but since its creation, the set has only been a valid option when stacking Weapon Damage in Medium Armor to get max effectiveness while offering no solution for the other stats hybrids need like Crit, Penetration and Max Resources. The set was made long before ZOS started making sets like New Moon that gave bonuses to both Magicka and Stamina builds.

What I will be focusing on are the options in the game that "double dip" their bonuses. What does this mean to me? Any bonus in the game that normally provides 1 bonus like 2-4 pieces having 129 weapon damage, 833 crit, 1096 stamina, etc, but instead giving you more than what that standard should. Whether it be 129 Weapon and Spell damage or a prismatic glyph offering 1.5x a single stamina/magicka/health glyph.

Here is what Pelinal's Aptitude gives, notice how not a single bonus double dips.
2 - Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3 - Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
4 - Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
5 - Your Spell and Weapon Damage both become the highest of the two values.

The biggest drawbacks of this set:

1. The 2-4 piece bonuses are very underwhelming, none of which double dip.
2. 5 piece bonus only serves to equalize Weapon/Spell damage with nothing additonal on top.
3. Weapon/Spell Crit is not equalized.
4. Weapon/Spell Penetration is not equalized.
5. Magicka/Stamina is not equalized.
6. To get the most value out of this set, you must use Medium Armor which does not provide universal bonuses in their passives, you're going to have better stamina sustain and crit chance while offering nothing towards magicka skills.

Here are obvious options that double dip:

• Armor: Heavy (Equal passives that effect defense, sustain when hit, increased sustain from heavy attacks based on weapon type, healing received, hp regen and max health). Medium/Light focus on stamina or magicka, not really both.
• Armor Enchantments: Prismatic Enchantments on all 7 pieces. Provides 1.5x the value by splitting the resource 3 ways.
• Mundus Stone: Lover (best choice) and Thief (not super useful in pvp, doesn't buff crit healing)
• Race: Dark Elf (best choice) and Kahjiit (hybrid, but focus on crit damage for pvp makes it the worse option)
• Weapon: Doesn't matter, the weapon power affects both, make sure it's Gold asap.
• Weapon Traits: Nirn/Precise/Sharpenned (front bar) and Infused Weapon Damage Enchantment (back bar).
• Food/Drink: Sugar Skulls is cheap, gold level (providing free hp regen, synergy with heavy armor) and under the "food" category providing higher value bonuses than the "drinks" category.

Options that don't double dip:

• Most mundus stones. Stick with the ones that do like Lover.
• Jewelry enchantments:
  • Weapon and spell damage are seperate enchantments giving half the value to anyone building for a hybrid not using Pelinial's Aptitude. Tri-regen glyphs have been introduced with Greymoor offering 1.5x the value of a normal regen enchantment, providing free hp regen (synergy with heavy armor). Since this is now an option, I suggest focussing your damage bonuses through the available sets, while utilizing some tri-regen glyphs until ZOS decides to create dual damage glyphs
• 64 Character stats: Unfortunately this can't be mitigated unless you consider health a "hyrbid" choice. I'd just put 32 stam and 32 magicka. Sugar Skulls food makes up for some of the drawbacks here since it's stat density is the highest in the game.
• Sets: No longer a problem now that ZOS has created multiple sets that double dip their 2-5 piece bonuses without any drawbacks, further making Pelinal's Aptitude obsolete.
• CP: Not enough points, there are diminishing returns, but the max cp is too low to make a big enough difference to justify spending your points in 2 seperate damage nodes. CP is usually where Hybrids fall behind which is why I recommend staying in no cp pvp where this is a non issue.

---

TLDR Solution:

So this is my recommendation for a pvp damage build that does not require Pelinal's Aptitude allowing you to utilize Heavy Armor hybrid like passives and cover the drawbacks of not having equalized crit chance, penetration, max resources and sustain through Medium Armor or even Light Armor passives. Your HP regen is not something to scoff at, it will be much higher with the below recommendations.

• Race: Dark Elf
• Food: Sugar Skulls.
• Stats: 32 stamina, 32 magicka or whatever you want really.
• Armor: 5 Heavy, 1 Med, 1 Light for 3x undaunted passive.
• Mundus: Lover
• Jewelry: Tri-glyph Regen Enchantments mixed with infused if resource regen is still too low. Triune is a great option too.
• Weapon Traits: Front bar Nirnhoned to boost heals, back bar infused weapon damage enchantment since it buffs both weapon/spell damage.
• Class, Armor Traits, Skills, etc all down to the user. Just aim for a way to get Major Brutality and Sorcery at the same time, Warden, Sorc, DK and NB can do this via class skills freeing up bar space and potions.

Malacath’s Band of Brutality – Ring
1 – Increases your damage done by 25%. You cannot deal critical damage.

Thoughts:

With this ring, you no longer need to think about crit chance, they don't matter. In pvp, crit chance is already weaker due to increased crit resistance values so this is a no brainer. To maximize the potency of this ring, all other choices in your build should do everything to avoid crit chance bonuses if possible since they are completely wasted when using this set (crit healing still works however).

Stuhn’s Favor (Front bar weapon, 2H Sword)
2 – Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
3 – Adds 1487 Physical Penetration & 1487 Spell Penetration
4 – Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
5 – When you deal damage to an enemy who is Off Balance, your Physical Penetration and Spell Penetration is increased by 5312 for 10 seconds.

Thoughts:

Every single bonus in this set double dip's making this the highest density statiscal hybrid set in the game that ALSO happens to have 0 crit chance bonuses. If we calculate how much value this set provides based on typical 1 piece set bonuses like 129 weapon damage. The total comes out to 13.14x a 1 piece bonus, this does not begin to consider the fact that every bonus is the strongest type of bonus in the game via damage and penetration, not wasting 1 piece on max resources or crit chance.

The proc: Off balance is activated for 7s with a 15s CD at the end. The set does not have an internal CD and will refresh on any damage done to anyone with off balance. This means, in a 1v1 fight, you will have a maximum uptime of 17/22s or 77%. In any group fight, you can easily get this to 100% uptime. Only drawback is requiring offbalance, but if your choosing to be a hybrid build your most likely using 2H front bar for the higher total damage and Dizzy Swing making this a no brainer set. Get it. Some classes have other methods of off balance, so 2H is not a must, but it is available to everyone.

The final set is the most difficult to choose, here are the options I considered:

• Shacklebreaker - no crit chance, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• New Moon Acolyte - 1 crit bonus and increases cost for both resouce pools which are necessary (bigger hit than typical 1 main resource setup), 4/4 pieces double dip.
• Ancient Dragonguard - 1 crit bonus, 3/4 pieces double dip.
• Mechanical Acuity - entire set relies on crit dmg, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• Innate Axiom - 1 crit bonus, outclassed by New Moon only offering damage to class skills, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• Twice-Born Star - 0/4 pieces double dip, having 2 mundus stones would only help if there was a weapon/spell damage double dipping option. Lover should be used already and Thief is pointless with Malacath Band.

My final choice came down to Shacklebreaker or New Moon Acolyte. Shacklebreaker ending up on top for me.

Shacklebreaker (body/jewelry):
2 - Adds 129 Weapon Damage
3 - Adds 129 Spell Damage
4 - Adds 129 Stamina Recovery, Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
5 - Adds 2000 Maximum Stamina, Adds 2000 Maximum Magicka

OR

New Moon Acolyte (body/jewelry):
2 - Adds 833 Weapon Critical & 833 Spell Critical (wasted)
3 - Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
4 - Adds 1487 Physical Penetration & 1487 Spell Penetration
5 - Adds 481 Weapon Damage & Spell Damage. Increases the cost of your active abilities by 5%.

Thoughts:

Why are they somewhat equal for consideration, even though New Moon has crit? Shacklebreaker does not double dip its 2/3rd bonus meaning both sets actually have the same number of bonuses all things considered. The choice comes down to preference and sustain, since I suggested Sugar Skulls, Dark Elf and Tri-glyph enchants on jewelry as your only method of sustain, I feel like Shacklebreaker puts your final max resources and sustain at a reasonable level while New Moon won't, but both are good options.

Monster helmet or shoulder as final 1 piece:
Balorgh or Molag Kena: Adds 129 weapon damage and 129 spell damage.
OR
Domihaus: Adds 1096 stamina and 1096 magicka (Might be better option if using New Moon).

Honourable Mention: Stonekeeper, instead of providing 2x stats, it's 1.5x since it goes health/magicka/stamina. Health is already high with Heavy Armor.

Back Bar set could be anything so I won't make a recommendation, I'd go with BRP DW personally because I lean more towards melee builds.

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

I wanted to open up a discussion on the state of hybrid pvp builds in Greymoor that have seen 2 major buffs I get into near the bottom half of this post if you want to skip to the TLDR. Mainly having to do with Malacath Band, Stuhns Favor and tri-glyh enchantments. This is not exactly a build, just pointing out what I think would be the best options for Hybrids to use in Greymoor when picking things in their build to get maximum effectiveness while having no need for Pelinal's Aptitude and Medium Armor.

Thoughts on what to consider about making a hybrid build:

Typically, Hybrid builds relied on the set "Pelinal's Aptitude", but since its creation, the set has only been a valid option when stacking Weapon Damage in Medium Armor to get max effectiveness while offering no solution for the other stats hybrids need like Crit, Penetration and Max Resources. The set was made long before ZOS started making sets like New Moon that gave bonuses to both Magicka and Stamina builds.

What I will be focusing on are the options in the game that "double dip" their bonuses. What does this mean to me? Any bonus in the game that normally provides 1 bonus like 2-4 pieces having 129 weapon damage, 833 crit, 1096 stamina, etc, but instead giving you more than what that standard should. Whether it be 129 Weapon and Spell damage or a prismatic glyph offering 1.5x a single stamina/magicka/health glyph.

Here is what Pelinal's Aptitude gives, notice how not a single bonus double dips.
2 - Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3 - Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
4 - Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
5 - Your Spell and Weapon Damage both become the highest of the two values.

The biggest drawbacks of this set:

1. The 2-4 piece bonuses are very underwhelming, none of which double dip.
2. 5 piece bonus only serves to equalize Weapon/Spell damage with nothing additonal on top.
3. Weapon/Spell Crit is not equalized.
4. Weapon/Spell Penetration is not equalized.
5. Magicka/Stamina is not equalized.
6. To get the most value out of this set, you must use Medium Armor which does not provide universal bonuses in their passives, you're going to have better stamina sustain and crit chance while offering nothing towards magicka skills.

Here are obvious options that double dip:

• Armor: Heavy (Equal passives that effect defense, sustain when hit, increased sustain from heavy attacks based on weapon type, healing received, hp regen and max health). Medium/Light focus on stamina or magicka, not really both.
• Armor Enchantments: Prismatic Enchantments on all 7 pieces. Provides 1.5x the value by splitting the resource 3 ways.
• Mundus Stone: Lover (best choice) and Thief (not super useful in pvp, doesn't buff crit healing)
• Race: Dark Elf (best choice) and Kahjiit (hybrid, but focus on crit damage for pvp makes it the worse option)
• Weapon: Doesn't matter, the weapon power affects both, make sure it's Gold asap.
• Weapon Traits: Nirn/Precise/Sharpenned (front bar) and Infused Weapon Damage Enchantment (back bar).
• Food/Drink: Sugar Skulls is cheap, gold level (providing free hp regen, synergy with heavy armor) and under the "food" category providing higher value bonuses than the "drinks" category.

Options that don't double dip:

• Most mundus stones. Stick with the ones that do like Lover.
• Jewelry enchantments:
  • Weapon and spell damage are seperate enchantments giving half the value to anyone building for a hybrid not using Pelinial's Aptitude. Tri-regen glyphs have been introduced with Greymoor offering 1.5x the value of a normal regen enchantment, providing free hp regen (synergy with heavy armor). Since this is now an option, I suggest focussing your damage bonuses through the available sets, while utilizing some tri-regen glyphs until ZOS decides to create dual damage glyphs
• 64 Character stats: Unfortunately this can't be mitigated unless you consider health a "hyrbid" choice. I'd just put 32 stam and 32 magicka. Sugar Skulls food makes up for some of the drawbacks here since it's stat density is the highest in the game.
• Sets: No longer a problem now that ZOS has created multiple sets that double dip their 2-5 piece bonuses without any drawbacks, further making Pelinal's Aptitude obsolete.
• CP: Not enough points, there are diminishing returns, but the max cp is too low to make a big enough difference to justify spending your points in 2 seperate damage nodes. CP is usually where Hybrids fall behind which is why I recommend staying in no cp pvp where this is a non issue.

---

TLDR Solution:

So this is my recommendation for a pvp damage build that does not require Pelinal's Aptitude allowing you to utilize Heavy Armor hybrid like passives and cover the drawbacks of not having equalized crit chance, penetration, max resources and sustain through Medium Armor or even Light Armor passives. Your HP regen is not something to scoff at, it will be much higher with the below recommendations.

• Race: Dark Elf
• Food: Sugar Skulls.
• Stats: 32 stamina, 32 magicka or whatever you want really.
• Armor: 5 Heavy, 1 Med, 1 Light for 3x undaunted passive.
• Mundus: Lover
• Jewelry: Tri-glyph Regen Enchantments mixed with infused if resource regen is still too low. Triune is a great option too.
• Weapon Traits: Front bar Nirnhoned to boost heals, back bar infused weapon damage enchantment since it buffs both weapon/spell damage.
• Class, Armor Traits, Skills, etc all down to the user. Just aim for a way to get Major Brutality and Sorcery at the same time, Warden, Sorc, DK and NB can do this via class skills freeing up bar space and potions.

Malacath’s Band of Brutality – Ring
1 – Increases your damage done by 25%. You cannot deal critical damage.

Thoughts:

With this ring, you no longer need to think about crit chance, they don't matter. In pvp, crit chance is already weaker due to increased crit resistance values so this is a no brainer. To maximize the potency of this ring, all other choices in your build should do everything to avoid crit chance bonuses if possible since they are completely wasted when using this set (crit healing still works however).

Stuhn’s Favor (Front bar weapon, 2H Sword)
2 – Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
3 – Adds 1487 Physical Penetration & 1487 Spell Penetration
4 – Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
5 – When you deal damage to an enemy who is Off Balance, your Physical Penetration and Spell Penetration is increased by 5312 for 10 seconds.

Thoughts:

Every single bonus in this set double dip's making this the highest density statiscal hybrid set in the game that ALSO happens to have 0 crit chance bonuses. If we calculate how much value this set provides based on typical 1 piece set bonuses like 129 weapon damage. The total comes out to 13.14x a 1 piece bonus, this does not begin to consider the fact that every bonus is the strongest type of bonus in the game via damage and penetration, not wasting 1 piece on max resources or crit chance.

The proc: Off balance is activated for 7s with a 15s CD at the end. The set does not have an internal CD and will refresh on any damage done to anyone with off balance. This means, in a 1v1 fight, you will have a maximum uptime of 17/22s or 77%. In any group fight, you can easily get this to 100% uptime. Only drawback is requiring offbalance, but if your choosing to be a hybrid build your most likely using 2H front bar for the higher total damage and Dizzy Swing making this a no brainer set. Get it. Some classes have other methods of off balance, so 2H is not a must, but it is available to everyone.

The final set is the most difficult to choose, here are the options I considered:

• Shacklebreaker - no crit chance, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• New Moon Acolyte - 1 crit bonus and increases cost for both resouce pools which are necessary (bigger hit than typical 1 main resource setup), 4/4 pieces double dip.
• Ancient Dragonguard - 1 crit bonus, 3/4 pieces double dip.
• Mechanical Acuity - entire set relies on crit dmg, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• Innate Axiom - 1 crit bonus, outclassed by New Moon only offering damage to class skills, 2/4 pieces double dip.
• Twice-Born Star - 0/4 pieces double dip, having 2 mundus stones would only help if there was a weapon/spell damage double dipping option. Lover should be used already and Thief is pointless with Malacath Band.

My final choice came down to Shacklebreaker or New Moon Acolyte. Shacklebreaker ending up on top for me.

Shacklebreaker (body/jewelry):
2 - Adds 129 Weapon Damage
3 - Adds 129 Spell Damage
4 - Adds 129 Stamina Recovery, Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
5 - Adds 2000 Maximum Stamina, Adds 2000 Maximum Magicka

OR

New Moon Acolyte (body/jewelry):
2 - Adds 833 Weapon Critical & 833 Spell Critical (wasted)
3 - Adds 129 Weapon Damage & 129 Spell Damage
4 - Adds 1487 Physical Penetration & 1487 Spell Penetration
5 - Adds 481 Weapon Damage & Spell Damage. Increases the cost of your active abilities by 5%.

Thoughts:

Why are they somewhat equal for consideration, even though New Moon has crit? Shacklebreaker does not double dip its 2/3rd bonus meaning both sets actually have the same number of bonuses all things considered. The choice comes down to preference and sustain, since I suggested Sugar Skulls, Dark Elf and Tri-glyph enchants on jewelry as your only method of sustain, I feel like Shacklebreaker puts your final max resources and sustain at a reasonable level while New Moon won't, but both are good options.

Monster helmet or shoulder as final 1 piece:
Balorgh or Molag Kena: Adds 129 weapon damage and 129 spell damage.
OR
Domihaus: Adds 1096 stamina and 1096 magicka (Might be better option if using New Moon).

Honourable Mention: Stonekeeper, instead of providing 2x stats, it's 1.5x since it goes health/magicka/stamina. Health is already high with Heavy Armor.

Back Bar set could be anything so I won't make a recommendation, I'd go with BRP DW personally because I lean more towards melee builds.

I use New Moon and Shacklebreaker. I'm squishy as hell and weapon damage is low (only around 3k buffed and will be under 3k after New Moon is nerfed - which people on this site tried to convince me was nothing).

You're probably squishy because your heals are weak with low resources and only 3k weapon dmg. But by telling us those 2 sets alone we can't help much to improve your situation.