fred4 wrote: »

Depending on what class / build you play, the Pyrelord is either an issue or a complete non-issue. I've seen Deltia having to be careful in that fight. For myself it has never been an issue. The builds I've played most in vVH are magplar and stamina Brawler builds. In general I find ongoing magplar (Sweeps) healing stronger and easier to use than NB Swallow Soul and Sap Essence combined. I think a magblade with only class heals and no additional measures (Pale Order, shielding sets etc.) may still be marginal and probably has to use the above-mentioned mechanics. I never even knew to use the orb mechanic in that fight, because I always outhealed or outshielded everything easily. Since you're playing stamina, here goes:

Shielding set(s), especially Hexos Ward and Iceheart, are good recommendations, because those two sets include crit components. They don't lag much behind pure damage sets. For solo content I'd also go with good old Vicious Ophidian (VO) as the trial set, if you have that. Nothing beats having your sustain sorted and the Major Expedition is damn nice at times. Absent VO you can get some of the same effect (stam on kill) from red CP or the Vengeance Leech 3-piece set.

Building for health regen by withholding your ultimate is a possibility, but hurts your damage. Stack that with gold food, Gaze of Sithis, Endurance jewelry, nightblade passives and a potion, and you'll probably hit 8K. I don't recommend doing all of that, though. Gaze, especially, hurts you in the Minotaur fight where you may want to block the heavy attacks.

A Master's Brawler build, on the other hand, is the guaranteed answer to everything. You can sleepwalk your way through the arena with that. Stamsorc (Crit Surge) is probably ideal, but with Pale Order it doesn't really matter. I've done it on DK as well. The 2H Brawler AOE skill generates a shield that scales with the number of enemies you hit. It ranges from about 6K to 20K. You can spam that skill so you regenerate the shield every ... single ... second. This synergises extremely well with ongoing smallish healing over time, such as from Pale Order, Crit Surge, Leeching Strikes and/or health regen. Nothing gets through that. Well some things do, but it's very comfortable.

The keys to a good Brawler build are a Master 2H weapon from Dragonstar arena, which can make your AOE damage scale up to ridiculous levels in fights with adds, and sustain, sustain, sustain. Forget Hexos Ward. Forget every other shielding set. The Brawler shield outclasses everything in size and in uptime, since you can refresh it every second. You just need to have the sustain for it. Therefore, the no-brainer, any stamina class sleepwalk through difficult content build consists of:

Master's 2H front bar weapon, Precise or Sharpened
Vicious Ophidian on the body, Divines, Thief mundus
Wretched Vitality back bar
Pale Order
1x monster set, probably Slimecraw
Bloodthirsty jewelry, all weapon damage, all medium armor

If you do nothing but spam Brawler, that may not be enough damage to break the ring of shades in the final boss fight. If you're being a good DD and you also do other stuff that may not be an issue. However, if it is, plopping down a Shadow Image and porting outside the ring as it closes in on you should solve that problem. The Master's 2H weapon, though, turns many a fight on it's head. The damage ramps up the more adds there are. Not just your cumulative damage, but also your per target damage. You positively want adds. As the ring closes in you hit more and more targets. I tend to break it on Master's Brawler builds at the last second, even tanky builds that don't have a lot of damage otherwise.

Of course on the other end of the spectrum, if you're playing dual-wield and just want to make a minimum change to your build, you could simply try Bloodthirst as the spammable.

fred4 wrote: »

Nyseto wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Depending on what class / build you play, the Pyrelord is either an issue or a complete non-issue. I've seen Deltia having to be careful in that fight. For myself it has never been an issue. The builds I've played most in vVH are magplar and stamina Brawler builds. In general I find ongoing magplar (Sweeps) healing stronger and easier to use than NB Swallow Soul and Sap Essence combined. I think a magblade with only class heals and no additional measures (Pale Order, shielding sets etc.) may still be marginal and probably has to use the above-mentioned mechanics. I never even knew to use the orb mechanic in that fight, because I always outhealed or outshielded everything easily. Since you're playing stamina, here goes:

Shielding set(s), especially Hexos Ward and Iceheart, are good recommendations, because those two sets include crit components. They don't lag much behind pure damage sets. For solo content I'd also go with good old Vicious Ophidian (VO) as the trial set, if you have that. Nothing beats having your sustain sorted and the Major Expedition is damn nice at times. Absent VO you can get some of the same effect (stam on kill) from red CP or the Vengeance Leech 3-piece set.

Building for health regen by withholding your ultimate is a possibility, but hurts your damage. Stack that with gold food, Gaze of Sithis, Endurance jewelry, nightblade passives and a potion, and you'll probably hit 8K. I don't recommend doing all of that, though. Gaze, especially, hurts you in the Minotaur fight where you may want to block the heavy attacks.

A Master's Brawler build, on the other hand, is the guaranteed answer to everything. You can sleepwalk your way through the arena with that. Stamsorc (Crit Surge) is probably ideal, but with Pale Order it doesn't really matter. I've done it on DK as well. The 2H Brawler AOE skill generates a shield that scales with the number of enemies you hit. It ranges from about 6K to 20K. You can spam that skill so you regenerate the shield every ... single ... second. This synergises extremely well with ongoing smallish healing over time, such as from Pale Order, Crit Surge, Leeching Strikes and/or health regen. Nothing gets through that. Well some things do, but it's very comfortable.

The keys to a good Brawler build are a Master 2H weapon from Dragonstar arena, which can make your AOE damage scale up to ridiculous levels in fights with adds, and sustain, sustain, sustain. Forget Hexos Ward. Forget every other shielding set. The Brawler shield outclasses everything in size and in uptime, since you can refresh it every second. You just need to have the sustain for it. Therefore, the no-brainer, any stamina class sleepwalk through difficult content build consists of:

Master's 2H front bar weapon, Precise or Sharpened
Vicious Ophidian on the body, Divines, Thief mundus
Wretched Vitality back bar
Pale Order
1x monster set, probably Slimecraw
Bloodthirsty jewelry, all weapon damage, all medium armor

If you do nothing but spam Brawler, that may not be enough damage to break the ring of shades in the final boss fight. If you're being a good DD and you also do other stuff that may not be an issue. However, if it is, plopping down a Shadow Image and porting outside the ring as it closes in on you should solve that problem. The Master's 2H weapon, though, turns many a fight on it's head. The damage ramps up the more adds there are. Not just your cumulative damage, but also your per target damage. You positively want adds. As the ring closes in you hit more and more targets. I tend to break it on Master's Brawler builds at the last second, even tanky builds that don't have a lot of damage otherwise.

Of course on the other end of the spectrum, if you're playing dual-wield and just want to make a minimum change to your build, you could simply try Bloodthirst as the spammable.

Sustain isn’t an issue for me, I use lava foot soup and get the orbs. I haven’t been using the brawler morph of cleave or hexos ward though. I think if I put those on and switch mundus to thief as well as using leeching strikes, I will finally succeed.

Brawler is an expensive skill to spam, that's why I go on about sustain. Wearing Hexos Ward with Brawler is a mistake. When you consider shielding per second, the Hexos shield is minuscule compared to Brawler. Hexos Ward doesn't add anything, if you use that skill. However you have to be able to sustain Brawler as needed. Spamming it also progresses the fight. Having the sustain to do that can be more effective than having higher damage, but being forced into heavy attacks or burst heals from time to time. That said, I'm talking from experience soloing harder content than vVH, such as (the first arena of) vBRP, where you are under pressure to shield all the time.

• Look at that Brawler tooltip: 10K against a single target at CP720 with 60% crit and no Incap buff. You won't see this tooltip in game, but I believe the Master weapon adds some hidden damage (that UESP shows) even against a single target. Uptime on this is entirely achievable. It's not a short term tooltip.
• Camou Hunter frees you up to use tri pots, gives extra weapon damage from Fighter's Guild passive and occasionally Minor Berserk.
• Merciless is something I could personally take or leave, but it gives you a passive damage increase, even if you don't use it. The magicka morph is the stronger one. If you can't sustain or are just using it passively, switch to Relentless. I'm not sure UESP has calculated the mag sustain properly. I think it's more with Wretched active.
• Concealed is also here entireley passively, although you could occasionally weave it in just to keep your Shadow passive resistances up. The combination with Twisting Path should give you 100% uptime on the flat 10% damage buff. That's the same as Major Berserk and is how we reach these numbers.
• Twisting Path is just good damage. I'd use it over Refreshing and to proc the Concealed buff.
• I believe Incap is the preferred NB ultimate for all the effects it has.
• The ground DOT from Stampede activates the back bar enchant 100% as long as an enemy stands in it. It's also quite strong and having the gap closer is fun and speedy.
• Shrewd Offering is your emergency heal only. Main healing comes from Pale Order and Leeching.
• Forward Momentum activates both parts of Wretched Vitality. You could use Rally for the heal, but I like skills that clear and give immunity to snares. Your choice. Major Brutality frees you to use tri-pots in emergency rather than getting that from a potion.
• Leeching Strikes. Heal and sustain. So subtle, but I always come back to it.
• Dark Shade. This thing deals significant damage.
• Soul Tether, a more defensive and AOE ultimate.