100% competitive with those sets

If you have some gold, I would suggest paying for crafted armor. Lot of BiS is crafted armor rn. New Moon Acolyte, Stuhn, Orgnum for defense... I bought 5 pieces NMA 2 weeks ago for 45k plus nirn mats. Just ask in zone chat in one of the major cities.
But overland is also very good.

You can be 100% competitive with those sets. I only PvP and I've never used a trial set, I honestly don't even know if there are any that would be useful for PvP?

Regarding dungeon gear, take a look at a few ESO streamers and content creators and you'll find plenty of them who use builds without any dungeon gear either with the exception of monster sets.

As I don't do PvE, every build I've ever made or used has been comprised of overland items and craftable ones. My "old faithful" sets are just boring old Spriggans/Spinners, Crafty Alfiq, Necropotence, New Moon Acolyte, and Shacklebreaker. You could honestly make a competent and solid enough PvP build, stam or mag, on any class using a combination of those. There's only been two times I've set foot in a (normal) dungeon for gear, ever, and that was for Titanborn and Caluurion. That's it. Both of which were only farmed for one specific build on one specific character.

As for gold, the only thing that "needs" to be gold is your weapon. Even still, if you're broke and in a purple weapon you can survive so long as you know what you're doing. Gold apparel and jewelry is mostly unnecessary, as the benefit between purple and gold is very small. If you want to totally min-max then yeah, go for gold, but it's absolutely not a requirement. Of all the PvP characters I have, the only one with gold gear is my main, and only because I wanted to have someone golded out just for the sake of it. Everyone else is in purple gear with only a gold weapon.

taugrim wrote: »

So those are both very easy-to-obtain, because you can buy pieces from Guild Traders and from the NPC vendors in Cyrodiil.

Questions:
1. In your experience, how competitive can you be with such gear, without gear from trials, dungeons, etc?
2. How many gear pieces do you feel needs to be gold as opposed to purple?

So far I have tried on my Stamden:
* Seventh Legion Brute for Heavy Armor. Not enough sustain
* Mark of the Pariah for Heavy Armor. Not enough sustain nor damage
* Eternal Vigor for Heavy Armor. Excellent sustain, happy I acquired it
* Spriggans for Medium Armor. Nice set for damage
* Shadow of the Red Mountain: The proc is solid burst damage, also happy with this set

The only gold gear I have so far is Maul with Nirnhoned.

1) I don't know why you would exclude dungeons given their ease. Without a monster set you will be at a disadvantage (assuming no mythics, no arena weapon sets). Assuming you are willing to get a monster set, you can have an extremely strong build with just zone drops/crafted gear.
2) Weapons must be gold, nothing else needs to be. It is beneficial to gold everything but it isn't the end of the world if its in purple.

You can try Clever Alchemist and New Moon Acolyte, both crafted. There's a lot of love for Venomous Smite too, but not my favorite.

If you are having sustain trouble, remember you can switch up food, mundus, and/or ring enchants to find the sweet spot given different gear setups.

mav1234 wrote: »

1) I don't know why you would exclude dungeons given their ease. Without a monster set you will be at a disadvantage (assuming no mythics, no arena weapon sets). Assuming you are willing to get a monster set, you can have an extremely strong build with just zone drops/crafted gear.

It's not an issue of difficulty per se. I just get tired of running dungeons.

Velidreth is on sale from the PVP vendor so I'll buy the helm and eventually try to get the shoulders with Undaunted keys (unless there is a better / more efficient way).

Thanks for feedback and guidance!

EtTuBrutus wrote: »

100% competitive with those sets

Thanks.

erio wrote: »

Aside from my moster set i literally cant remember the time i used a dungeon set besides essence thief. I also have just purple and feel fine

Relieved to hear this.

I did get 2-pc Velidreth over the weekend with my first 5 UP vendor purchase, although the shoulders were medium armor and I wanted heavy. I may have lucked out as the trait on the Shoulders was Divines, so at least I didn't get a garbage trait nor light armor.

I'm debating whether to grind UP to try to get a heavy armor Velidreth shoulders or to use the UP to try for another set of shoulders (e.g. Sellistrix).

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

But if gold is imperative for you, gold out your weapons first, @taugrim. Then start working on the rest of your gear.

Yes, I'm doing that starting with the 2H (frontbar).

For Stamina Warden, do you recommend Maul for the pen or Battle Axe for the bleed?

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

With a few exceptions, Trials gear is not that great for PvP ... set buffs such as Minor Slayer and Minor Aegis are useless because you're fighting players and not bosses.

OK thanks.

I'm relieved not to HAVE to grind Trials.

idk wrote: »

2. Only weapons need to be gold. The increase of set bonus and traits from purple to gold is small but the increase in SD/WD between a purple and gold weapon is significant regardless of the set bonus involved.

Thanks.

I upgraded a Purple Maul to Gold and the tooltip on Subterranean Assault went up ~6%. It's significant.

Swomp23 wrote: »

If you have some gold, I would suggest paying for crafted armor. Lot of BiS is crafted armor rn. New Moon Acolyte, Stuhn, Orgnum for defense... I bought 5 pieces NMA 2 weeks ago for 45k plus nirn mats. Just ask in zone chat in one of the major cities.

I may get NMA at some point but for now I'm experimenting with proc-based builds for BG.

My first 5-pc proc set is Shadow of the Red Mountain and I like it. The proc is reliable and can hit a moving target. Granted, it's visible so dodgeable.

Ariades_swe wrote: »

You can be as competitive as anyone with sets from these sources.

Thanks.

JayKwellen wrote: »

Gold apparel and jewelry is mostly unnecessary, as the benefit between purple and gold is very small. If you want to totally min-max then yeah, go for gold, but it's absolutely not a requirement. Of all the PvP characters I have, the only one with gold gear is my main, and only because I wanted to have someone golded out just for the sake of it. Everyone else is in purple gear with only a gold weapon.

Once I get my weapons golded I may gold select armor pieces.

The cost for upgrading to or beyond purple for jewelry is prohibitive so I'll likely spend my money and time acquiring more sets instead of upgrading my jewelry.

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Tho you only want ONE crafted set because jewelry is like 10x more expensive to upgrade than armor & weapons

Yea I didn't realize this until I started looking at mats for upgrading jewelry.

I suppose this isn't going to change because jewelry was implemented this way years ago. There was a thread I read before jewelcrafting even launched talking about how messed up the costs would be.

geonsocal wrote: »

main challenge with that though is that it's hard to make a lot of coin just doing pvp...

Yea I plan on farming Imperial City / Sewers to help with cash flow.

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

As others have said, add crafted gear to your list of easy to acquire options. Some of them are very competitive.

Also, crafted gear gives you maximum flexibility with weights and traits, making it easier to get your build exactly how you want it.

What I've been landing on so far for my Stamina Warden...

With Monster Set: 5/5/2
- Monster Sets: preferably heavy armor
- Chest/Legs/Boots: heavy armor set
- Belt/Boots: medium armor, since these slots have the smallest armor gap between medium and heavy
- Jewelry: 3 pieces to pair with the Belt/Boots
- Weapons: pieces to pair with the Chest/Legs/Boots

No Monster Set: 5/5/2
- Chest/Legs/Helm/Shoulder/Boots: 5-pc heavy armor
- Belt/Boots: medium armor, since these pieces have the smallest armor gap between medium and heavy
- Jewelry: 3 pieces to pair with the Belt/Boots
- Weapons: separate 2-pc bonus

Firstmep wrote: »

I would definetly go with Eternal Vigor, I'd recommend you wear it on jewelery and chest and leg pieces, even if you don't have access to transmute crystals, maximum health scales really well on stamina warden due minor toughness and arctic blast.

I eventually plan on replacing Health on heavy armor with tri-stat.

Firstmep wrote: »

As for monster mask, engine guardian or malubeth are both great choices for pvp, and the dungeons they come from are very easy to do.

What is Malubeth?

I have 2-pc Velidreth and Sellistrix helm, thanks to Golden NPC over the weekend

Firstmep wrote: »

I don't know how new you are op, but jointing a trade guild, is very important for making gold in this game.
Make sure you level your crafting professions and do your daily crafting writs, those can make you a good chunk of gold almost passively.

I haven't looked into joining a trading guild, but it would be nice to sell set drops that I have no interest in using.

sami.uotilaeb17_ESO wrote: »

It feels everyone is using procsets in non-cp BGs doing 300k-1.2mil damage per battle.

Kind of curious what setup (which 2 procset combined) you get those +1mil Damages...

In ~30 BGs at CP160+, I have yet to see anyone break 1MM damage.

But I see people in the 500-800k range pretty frequently, with 800+k being unusual.

High total damage in a BG is usually paired with a lot of healing. With two teams having competent healers, damage dealers spamming AOEs can easily exceed 1mil damage. The healers keep people alive, so you can keep pouring on damage. I've seen 2mil damage with this scenario, 1mil being fairly routine.

taugrim wrote: »

xshatox wrote: »

This set https://eso-sets.com/set/scourge-harvester
Pretty popular replacement for bloodspawn since the nerf for stam user.

I don't own that but I don't like:
#1: the low proc rate (10%)
#2: having to stay within 8m to maintain the beam. The beam can be broken by teleport/leap or with CCs

Do folks who have Scourge Harvester and Velidreth's prefer SH?

I only have Velidreth's right now but I do like it.

Scourge harvest is something you have to adapt your playstyle to. If it didn't suit how you wanna play it's awful.