Thanks for that. I'm playing PvE and mainly solo (recently returned from a long layoff). I was unaware of Undaunted Mettle which looks like a interesting asset so I think I'll give 5-1-1 a run for its money. Nothing is irreversable so I can always go back to all medium if I want to.

Tantala wrote: »

Thanks for that. I'm playing PvE and mainly solo (recently returned from a long layoff). I was unaware of Undaunted Mettle which looks like a interesting asset so I think I'll give 5-1-1 a run for its money. Nothing is irreversable so I can always go back to all medium if I want to.

Given the choice of weights, such as when you're crafting everything, for solo PvE I personally go:

1 medium, 6 light for a magicka character
All medium on a stamina character

It basically gives you the best sustain and damage. @TheEndBringer, Undaunted Mettle gives you stats. You're thinking of Undaunted Command which, as you say, is less useful in PvP. Undaunted Mettle is useful everywhere, although I'd argue it is more useful in PvP than PvE. In PvP I really care about my off stat and my health. As a DD or solo player in PvE, not so much.

For solo play, let me give you some specific recommendations:

Stamina: Vicious Ophidian
Magicka: False God's Devotion

No surprise there. The two BIS sets for solo play outside of heavy attack builds. Of course those are trial sets, but you can accumulate the body pieces fairly quickly by running normal trials. Vicious Ophidian drops from all Craglorn trials, notably Hel Ra, which PUGs run a lot. You'll want those sets to be active on both bars, thus you can leave it at getting the body pieces. You don't need the weapons, which would be more time-consuming to get.

For solo magicka builds I'd front bar Hexos Ward, which is an overland set you can buy from guild traders or farm. The remainder of the build can be a monster set, or something like Pale Order and 1x Slimecraw. You want crit %. Hexos Ward is one of the reasons I tend to end up with 1x medium. If you want to fit Pale Order, you end up with a Hexos Ward weapon, 2x jewelry and the chest.

For solo stamina builds I'd fill out the build with something like Briarheart, which is also easy to get. It's not much better than Hunding's, but it gives you that little bit of extra healing. If you can get yourself to farm Dragonstar Arena - it's easy on normal mode, albeit time-consuming - then combine the Master's 2H weapon with the 2H Brawler skill (morph of Cleave). You will be tankier than on a magicka build and you will do a lot of AOE damage. If you get that Titanic Cleave weapon you may have to jig things around a bit to also fit Pale Order. The combination of Brawler and Pale Order is extremely strong for solo play.

You can also push the combination of Brawler, Titanic Cleave and Vicious Ophidian into tanking territory while still doing decent damage. I run a random group tank that will, in fact, solo or carry everything up to vet hard mode non-DLC dungeons. You do need Vicious Ophidian or some other sustain set to survive via Brawler shield spam, but this is very powerful. For this type of build I recommend wearing as much medium armor as you can. You need the sustain. There are various ways to still reach resistance cap (33K) despite this, for example using the Tormentor set on the back bar as a tank. Here is my stamsorc hybrid tank / DD as an example:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=421256

That build is min-maxed for pugging dungeons. I have 45% crit and constant healing from Crit Surge as well as building into health regen. The self-healing from that and Dark Deal / Meditation makes Pale Order completely redundant, even solo. I've soloed City of Ash 2 with this on vet hard mode. World bosses, including the hardest ones, such as the Unfinished Dolmen, are easy to solo on this build. Elsweyr dragons are probably better soloed on a ranged build, though.

Having said all that, if you've just made a 5-1-1 setup, that's totally fine. It doesn't make much of a difference as long as the 5 is medium or light.

fred4 wrote: »

Tantala wrote: »

Thanks for that. I'm playing PvE and mainly solo (recently returned from a long layoff). I was unaware of Undaunted Mettle which looks like a interesting asset so I think I'll give 5-1-1 a run for its money. Nothing is irreversable so I can always go back to all medium if I want to.

Given the choice of weights, such as when you're crafting everything, for solo PvE I personally go:

1 medium, 6 light for a magicka character
All medium on a stamina character

It basically gives you the best sustain and damage. @TheEndBringer, Undaunted Mettle gives you stats. You're thinking of Undaunted Command which, as you say, is less useful in PvP. Undaunted Mettle is useful everywhere, although I'd argue it is more useful in PvP than PvE. In PvP I really care about my off stat and my health. As a DD or solo player in PvE, not so much.

For solo play, let me give you some specific recommendations:

Stamina: Vicious Ophidian
Magicka: False God's Devotion

No surprise there. The two BIS sets for solo play outside of heavy attack builds. Of course those are trial sets, but you can accumulate the body pieces fairly quickly by running normal trials. Vicious Ophidian drops from all Craglorn trials, notably Hel Ra, which PUGs run a lot. You'll want those sets to be active on both bars, thus you can leave it at getting the body pieces. You don't need the weapons, which would be more time-consuming to get.

For solo magicka builds I'd front bar Hexos Ward, which is an overland set you can buy from guild traders or farm. The remainder of the build can be a monster set, or something like Pale Order and 1x Slimecraw. You want crit %. Hexos Ward is one of the reasons I tend to end up with 1x medium. If you want to fit Pale Order, you end up with a Hexos Ward weapon, 2x jewelry and the chest.

For solo stamina builds I'd fill out the build with something like Briarheart, which is also easy to get. It's not much better than Hunding's, but it gives you that little bit of extra healing. If you can get yourself to farm Dragonstar Arena - it's easy on normal mode, albeit time-consuming - then combine the Master's 2H weapon with the 2H Brawler skill (morph of Cleave). You will be tankier than on a magicka build and you will do a lot of AOE damage. If you get that Titanic Cleave weapon you may have to jig things around a bit to also fit Pale Order. The combination of Brawler and Pale Order is extremely strong for solo play.

You can also push the combination of Brawler, Titanic Cleave and Vicious Ophidian into tanking territory while still doing decent damage. I run a random group tank that will, in fact, solo or carry everything up to vet hard mode non-DLC dungeons. You do need Vicious Ophidian or some other sustain set to survive via Brawler shield spam, but this is very powerful. For this type of build I recommend wearing as much medium armor as you can. You need the sustain. There are various ways to still reach resistance cap (33K) despite this, for example using the Tormentor set on the back bar as a tank. Here is my stamsorc hybrid tank / DD as an example:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=421256

That build is min-maxed for pugging dungeons. I have 45% crit and constant healing from Crit Surge as well as building into health regen. The self-healing from that and Dark Deal / Meditation makes Pale Order completely redundant, even solo. I've soloed City of Ash 2 with this on vet hard mode. World bosses, including the hardest ones, such as the Unfinished Dolmen, are easy to solo on this build. Elsweyr dragons are probably better soloed on a ranged build, though.

Having said all that, if you've just made a 5-1-1 setup, that's totally fine. It doesn't make much of a difference as long as the 5 is medium or light.

I was referring to command. Meddle is meh. Let's say you have a baseline 29k stamina with the 3% bonus.

That's a big whopping 870 extra stamina. Meanwhile for medium you're giving up 2% damage and 2% crit damage plus the other buffs from medium passives. Similarly you lose pen and crit from light.

This patch a good mix of medium and light is pretty great.

Thanks for all the info guys. FYI, I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since, well, The Elder Scrolls. I was in at the start of ESO and I've been coming and going since as my time available for gaming changed. As a result I have a mess of characters generally dating from each expansion I purchased and showing varying levels of progress. One of my first characters is now repurposed as a crafting alt and has 9 traits for every craftable item except necklace, which is researching at the moment. When I came back this time I decided to start all over again from the beginning but not to get bogged down crafting on my prime char. I found a guide to playing the entirity of ESO in order of availability and it is my current aim to take one character through all the expansions in chronological order. I'm mainly playing solo but I'm up for the occasional PUG however I don't want to get bogged down grinding for drops which limits me somewhat. I'm also aiming to end up with a complete set of gold-quality gear along the way.

Wish me luck and a long life ... I have a feeling I'm going to need both to finish this marathon.

For PVE it is best to go 6 light + 1 medium or 6 medium + 1 light depending on which resource most of you skills use. I could maybe see a argument for going 5-2 or even 4-3 on some hybrid builds.

DPS should not go 5-1-1 these days, that was only good back when the 6th or 7th piece of light or medium armor gave no damage bonuses. Any heavy pieces are a damage loss now.

Your points are well taken, guys. I'm basically doing some of this just for the fun of trying it out. It may sound silly, but I'm also trying to stay out of zones I haven't yet reached as part of my story progress.

I've made one piece of gold just to see how much difference it makes, and TBH it doesn't seem to help a lot. SInce I don't need to minimax I'll stay with purple for the rest. Courtesy of the current event I now have a set of Hundings stations in my crafter's house in Audiron. I'll probably go 6-1 with the Hundings as some of the sneeky passives could be useful for thieve's guild or dark brotherhood adventures) and in the short term I'll make a set of Ashen Grip for the remaining slots, the crafting station being conveniently located on Audiron plus I like the idea of spitting fire. Hopefully that should get me through everything I want to do in the old Alliance territories and I can upgrade from it as and when I am in a position to do more challenging content.

I usually run 5 medium and 2 heavy in PvP. In PvE it's much more flexible. I probably do 80% PvP but in PvE I still run 5/2. If I was going to optimize, I'd probably go 5/1/1 in PvE.