Is any of the Archive sets worth considering?

TheDarkRuler · December 2023

I have tested the arcanist and warden sets for heals and was severely underwhelmed because the bonuses are either too neglible or not as strong as the established RoJo and SPC/Pillager combo in the meta. Right now I've finished farming Wrathsun and was disappointed as well, the overall dps is extremely lacking and you need to focus your build around weaker abilities of the already weak templar class.

At this point i wonder why i am even trying playing something else except Arcanist and the "established" metas. No new set seems to be worth the effort anymore. No new bangers. Your opinion?

IncultaWolf · December 2023

The necromancer set doesn't even work properly and has a bugged tooltip

Joy_Division · December 2023

I've tried Wrathsun (Templar) and Monolith of Storms (Sorcerer) and they are strictly worse than my already non optimal set-ups.

Wrathsun isnt bad, but not be able to control the proc undermines it by quite a bir.

Monolith is noticeably lacking.

LunaFlora · December 2023

i haven't been able to use them yet, but Nobility in Decay seems fun for a tank

Brakkish · December 2023

Time/effort vs reward? Not in my opinion, absolutely not.

Ususur · December 2023

I tested the Nobility in Decay ( Necromancer ) in PvP and PvE let me say this:

Do not waste your time farming this set, in PvP Death's Favor does not work and PvE = not worth it in order to get something out of it you must stay at half health, as the ''treating you as a corpse'' you will be if you stay half health all the time just be sure to bring enough soul stones.

Don't know why they put class armor if no one will use it guess its only for looks there.

Colecovision · December 2023

They are terrible. As a stamblade main I feel like there wasn't even an attempt to be included. So I decon every piece of gear I get in there before I even take the vision. Love the archive though! I especially love the rotating sets that the chests are giving. Also, if they would have made a set useful to stamblade, it would have resulted in skills getting nerffed. So, this is fine.

jaws343 · December 2023

I keep looking at the monolith of storms set wondering if there is just something with it we are all failing to see. I just can't reconcile how bad it is as being intended.

EdjeSwift · December 2023

None of the sets are going to be a meta set anytime soon without changes, but they're fun little mess around and "see what I can do with these" sets. They're perfectly fine for a lot of content and having fun.

Ezhh · December 2023

jaws343 wrote: »

I keep looking at the monolith of storms set wondering if there is just something with it we are all failing to see. I just can't reconcile how bad it is as being intended.

This. So many times this. It's hard to even get enough monoliths up for it to do anything. Nothing about the set plays into a decent rotation, and even if you get it to deal any damage at all, it's underwhelming.

HalfDragoness · December 2023

I thought the sets you got from here were inteded to be strongest when used for solo play where you haave to be a healer, tank, and dps. Or that's how I read the DK one anyway. But none of them seem to have anything I'd consider using as a pure dps or pure healer.

Finedaible · December 2023

As a Stamblade main I don't see anything worth grinding out among the archive. If the class sets were slightly more powerful or were 4 or less pieces and there was the possibility to acquire dungeon sets or reliable transmutation crystals in there, then it might have been worth grinding. Perhaps next year they'll add more sets to the archive for the other skill lines which may be worth it but they already kind of set pretty low expectations for this new content.

For the solo aspect, Soulcleaver seems like it would be good paired with Oakensoul but Ring of the Pale Order should be plenty sufficient in the solo aspect and it doesn't limit your skill bar so I don't see why we need a crutch set to fix one of the weakest skill lines in the game (Siphoning) when we could just buff all our skills with a better set.

MidniteOwl1913 · December 2023

One of the few good things that came from EA for me is a tanky DK build that works well for a lot of content. It relies on the magma shell. I have Elfs Bane to extend the time, but I was thinking of an ultimate generating set to help keep it up even longer. I did a search for said sets and was a bit surprised to see Basalt set show up. So I gave it a look. I have enough pieces to make a build, that's not the problem. The problem is that there are so many many pieces in the set that even with a good chunk the transmute crystal cost is 50 per. That's a lot. So I'm thinking of Bog something which I can try basically for free as my stickerbook is full.

The DK almost seems tailored for the EA. Personally, I don't think it's worth it. The time it takes is just out of line with the quality.

Galeriano · December 2023

Most of them are just meh, some of them are ok, none of them is usefull.

Tyrant_Tim · December 2023

Our Nightblade set is the only one that looks like it could even have a niche, everything else simply has a better version elsewhere.

Big time failure on the class sets, a conversation I had recently with my guild, was that it would have been much better if the sets were 3 or 4 piece sets that provided a unique 2-piece and 3-piece like…

Wrathsun

2 - Dawn’s Wrath skills cost 5% less.
3 - Activating a Dawn’s Wrath skill grants the caster 10% increased damage to their next direct damage attack.
4 - When you deal damage with a Dawn's Wrath ability, you gain a stack of Sunlight for 10 seconds, once per attack. You can have 40 stacks max and gain 12 Magicka Recovery per stack. When at max stacks, your Dawn's Wrath abilities deal 25% bonus damage and a Wrathful Nova is cast on the enemy, but you cannot refresh Sunlight. When Sunlight expires at max stacks, you lose 50% of your current Magicka.

This would have been a much better approach, as it wouldn’t have resulted in them trying to hijack our builds with minimal result.

Jaraal · December 2023

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

Is any of the Archive sets worth considering?

No.

TheDarkRuler · December 2023

Jaraal wrote: »

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

Is any of the Archive sets worth considering?

No.

At this point ZOS might as well delete 90% of the sets ingame.
Lets just all play Pillars of Nirn, Relequen etc.etc.

TheDarkRuler · December 2023

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Our Nightblade set is the only one that looks like it could even have a niche, everything else simply has a better version elsewhere.

Big time failure on the class sets, a conversation I had recently with my guild, was that it would have been much better if the sets were 3 or 4 piece sets that provided a unique 2-piece and 3-piece like…

Wrathsun
2 - Dawn’s Wrath skills cost 5% less.

3 - Activating a Dawn’s Wrath skill grants the caster 10% increased damage to their next direct damage attack.

4 - When you deal damage with a Dawn's Wrath ability, you gain a stack of Sunlight for 10 seconds, once per attack. You can have 40 stacks max and gain 12 Magicka Recovery per stack. When at max stacks, your Dawn's Wrath abilities deal 25% bonus damage and a Wrathful Nova is cast on the enemy, but you cannot refresh Sunlight. When Sunlight expires at max stacks, you lose 50% of your current Magicka.

This would have been a much better approach, as it wouldn’t have resulted in them trying to hijack our builds with minimal result.

This would've been an amazing change especially considering Mythics and Monster helmets.

MudcrabAttack · December 2023

As a nightblade main I’m confused by all the somewhat positive posts about soul cleaver, ranging from “at least it buffs the skill line” to “they did a good job with that set”

How is it good?

I’ve been searching everywhere for any single post from anyone who really intends to use it, and also lists how or why they’re using it. And I really don’t see myself using any of the other class sets on alts either

Lykeion · December 2023

To be honest, I didn't feel any impact from the EA gear. They're not the Game Changer that the stream advertised them to be. They can't even be certain niches

Galeriano · December 2023

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

Is any of the Archive sets worth considering?

No.

At this point ZOS might as well delete 90% of the sets ingame.
Lets just all play Pillars of Nirn, Relequen etc.etc.

So You think class sets from EA are really viable choice and it's only a metachasing that removes them from the spotlight?

TheDarkRuler · December 2023

I ask you a different question...
why would I play a set like Wrathsun where i have to build up stacks for a minuscule damage buff on preselected abilities whereas sets like Pillar of Nirn deal strong dps without many conditions and with whatever abilities you like.

If a set has severely restricted conditions such as a.) class and b.) proccing conditions then the result should be stronger than that of a set with low proccing conditions.

Twohothardware · December 2023

I expected the class specific EA sets when they were first announced to be clear meta choices to give our loadouts a shakeup and to really define the strengths between classes.

Instead we got some watered down class sets that provide minor buffs or produce some minor damage proc that isn’t worth choosing over the existing non class sets.

woe · December 2023

Backbar necro set for pvp, DK set for pvp

Tyrant_Tim · December 2023

woe wrote: »

Backbar necro set for pvp, DK set for pvp

Necro set is a bust, I farmed the whole stickerbook for it day one, golded it out, threw on tri-glyphs, and put it on the typical proc build and it provided zero defense whatsoever.

You’re better off running Daedric Trickery than the Necro set, or the DK one.

Tyrant_Tim · December 2023

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

As a nightblade main I’m confused…

How is it good?

Back in the day, Magicka Nightblade used to be a ranged spec, that would use a majority of only Siphoning skills, now with that set, you can again.

Skills like…

Swallow Soul
Crippling Grasp
Healthy Offering
Siphoning Strikes
Power Extraction

With that skill line, we have a ranged spammable, a damage over time plus crowd control, a burst heal, resource return and healing upon basic attacks, and an area-of-effect direct damage skill that provides tons of free weapon and spell damage while reducing everyones’ around us on top of the Minor Defile enemies receive from it being Disease damage.

Now that we’ve established that every Siphoning Skill is useful, let’s take another look at the set Soulcleaver…

18% Damage and Healing, with 18% Cost Reduction at the cost of 1 Ultimate per cast of them? If you’re not running Balorgh, you’re sitting on your ultimate waiting for a good burst window anyway, so that drawback is nothing.

Now, sure Soul Tether doesn’t get affected, and maybe that’s an oversight, but Incapacitating Strike costs next to nothing and does everything, and Ice Comet still slaps without the 10% damage you would get from comparable sets like Essence Thief, something sitting behind Soulcleaver by 8%.

Out of all of the new sets, Soulcleaver stands out as a set you can make work, and even excel with.

kojou · December 2023

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

As a nightblade main I’m confused…

How is it good?

Back in the day, Magicka Nightblade used to be a ranged spec, that would use a majority of only Siphoning skills, now with that set, you can again.

Skills like…
Swallow Soul

Crippling Grasp

Healthy Offering

Siphoning Strikes

Power Extraction

With that skill line, we have a ranged spammable, a damage over time plus crowd control, a burst heal, resource return and healing upon basic attacks, and an area-of-effect direct damage skill that provides tons of free weapon and spell damage while reducing everyones’ around us on top of the Minor Defile enemies receive from it being Disease damage.

Now that we’ve established that every Siphoning Skill is useful, let’s take another look at the set Soulcleaver…

18% Damage and Healing, with 18% Cost Reduction at the cost of 1 Ultimate per cast of them? If you’re not running Balorgh, you’re sitting on your ultimate waiting for a good burst window anyway, so that drawback is nothing.

Now, sure Soul Tether doesn’t get affected, and maybe that’s an oversight, but Incapacitating Strike costs next to nothing and does everything, and Ice Comet still slaps without the 10% damage you would get from comparable sets like Essence Thief, something sitting behind Soulcleaver by 8%.

Out of all of the new sets, Soulcleaver stands out as a set you can make work, and even excel with.

If this set was available before Funnel Health and Cripple were nerfed it would have been really popular. Now that all of the Syphoning skills are pretty much out of the Nightblade meta it is kinda niche for soloing where you want the cost reduction and extra healing from it, but doesn't give a enough positive impact to DPS to make it worth using for anything else. It would need to be a much higher % damage to compete with Pillar.

Turtle_Bot · December 2023

Short Answer.

No!

Long Answer.

If you want to try out some new builds that might not be as strong as current meta builds, but have some niche to theory craft around them, then NB, warden, arcanist, necro (assuming it actually works), DK and plar sets can be built around to have some fun with.

The sorcerer set is a hard NO! Don't even bother with this set. The set does nothing interesting and is nothing but a horrible generic proc set that has very clunky conditions to proc it that actively nerfs your build to run it.
The set is not only extremely clunky to use, forcing you to actively run bad abilities to proc it somewhat reliably, but the proc that it has doesn't even match super old (base game) sets like Niraneth or Illambris for damage (especially Illambris which 1 half of Illambris' proc, easily out damages (>2x) the full proc of Monolith of storms).

Tyrant_Tim · December 2023

kojou wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

As a nightblade main I’m confused…

How is it good?

Back in the day, Magicka Nightblade used to be a ranged spec, that would use a majority of only Siphoning skills, now with that set, you can again.

Skills like…
Swallow Soul

Crippling Grasp

Healthy Offering

Siphoning Strikes

Power Extraction

With that skill line, we have a ranged spammable, a damage over time plus crowd control, a burst heal, resource return and healing upon basic attacks, and an area-of-effect direct damage skill that provides tons of free weapon and spell damage while reducing everyones’ around us on top of the Minor Defile enemies receive from it being Disease damage.

Now that we’ve established that every Siphoning Skill is useful, let’s take another look at the set Soulcleaver…

18% Damage and Healing, with 18% Cost Reduction at the cost of 1 Ultimate per cast of them? If you’re not running Balorgh, you’re sitting on your ultimate waiting for a good burst window anyway, so that drawback is nothing.

Now, sure Soul Tether doesn’t get affected, and maybe that’s an oversight, but Incapacitating Strike costs next to nothing and does everything, and Ice Comet still slaps without the 10% damage you would get from comparable sets like Essence Thief, something sitting behind Soulcleaver by 8%.

Out of all of the new sets, Soulcleaver stands out as a set you can make work, and even excel with.

If this set was available before Funnel Health and Cripple were nerfed it would have been really popular. Now that all of the Syphoning skills are pretty much out of the Nightblade meta it is kinda niche for soloing where you want the cost reduction and extra healing from it, but doesn't give a enough positive impact to DPS to make it worth using for anything else. It would need to be a much higher % damage to compete with Pillar.

Oh, there’s the disconnect; I was talking from a purely PvP perspective. For PvE, none of the sets are best in slot.

With Soulcleaver, you can get your Swallow Soul to hit harder than Concealed Weapon on a build running Essence Thief, not even taking into account the ridiculous power your Healthy Offering will have.

AvalonRanger · December 2023

Lykeion wrote: »

To be honest, I didn't feel any impact from the EA gear. They're not the Game Changer that the stream advertised them to be. They can't even be certain niches

Agree. Good point. I also didn't feel new Archive set will change current building direction.
It's for very specific purpose only.

Only Arcanist set is meaningful for my healer. Because it has extra sharing damage shield
function for group combat.

I have already all DK Archive set, but
I don't want to consider use it for my DK tank. Current gear is better.

Turtle_Bot · December 2023

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

As a nightblade main I’m confused…

How is it good?

Back in the day, Magicka Nightblade used to be a ranged spec, that would use a majority of only Siphoning skills, now with that set, you can again.

Skills like…
Swallow Soul

Crippling Grasp

Healthy Offering

Siphoning Strikes

Power Extraction

With that skill line, we have a ranged spammable, a damage over time plus crowd control, a burst heal, resource return and healing upon basic attacks, and an area-of-effect direct damage skill that provides tons of free weapon and spell damage while reducing everyones’ around us on top of the Minor Defile enemies receive from it being Disease damage.

Now that we’ve established that every Siphoning Skill is useful, let’s take another look at the set Soulcleaver…

18% Damage and Healing, with 18% Cost Reduction at the cost of 1 Ultimate per cast of them? If you’re not running Balorgh, you’re sitting on your ultimate waiting for a good burst window anyway, so that drawback is nothing.

Now, sure Soul Tether doesn’t get affected, and maybe that’s an oversight, but Incapacitating Strike costs next to nothing and does everything, and Ice Comet still slaps without the 10% damage you would get from comparable sets like Essence Thief, something sitting behind Soulcleaver by 8%.

Out of all of the new sets, Soulcleaver stands out as a set you can make work, and even excel with.

If this set was available before Funnel Health and Cripple were nerfed it would have been really popular. Now that all of the Syphoning skills are pretty much out of the Nightblade meta it is kinda niche for soloing where you want the cost reduction and extra healing from it, but doesn't give a enough positive impact to DPS to make it worth using for anything else. It would need to be a much higher % damage to compete with Pillar.

Oh, there’s the disconnect; I was talking from a purely PvP perspective. For PvE, none of the sets are best in slot.

With Soulcleaver, you can get your Swallow Soul to hit harder than Concealed Weapon on a build running Essence Thief, not even taking into account the ridiculous power your Healthy Offering will have.

Interesting build, I also tested it with war maiden on PvP builds (tankier/well rounded focused build than full PvE DPS builds sitting around 30k health, plenty of healing and buffs on the back bar instead of DoTs, etc).

Essence thief + soul cleaver + SSC + vate frost back bar + 1 piece magma and as long as you can get berserk from somewhere (SSC, group buff, passively slotted concealed, etc), swallow soul does indeed out-damage concealed (by about 6%).

I also tested war maiden in place of essence thief and that adds about another 3% damage over and above what essence thief gives.

Considering Soulcleaver comes in all weights, you can build as tanky (heavy armor) or DPS (light/medium armor) focused as you want by mixing and matching with the pieces of the set you pair with it.

I would still have to test the ulti drain from the set in practical use, but even then, with the transfer passive (from the siphoning skill line) and light attack weaving, that doesn't seem to be a concern, at least in theory.
Warning math incoming:

Taking ulti drain per cast from soulcleaver, assuming casting a siphoning skill every GCD, the transfer passive (2 ultimate every 4 seconds) and the ulti generated from each light attack weave we get the following calculations:

-1 +0.5 +3 = +2.5 ulti gained every second. Assuming you cast nothing but siphoning skills and weave.

Assuming you cast a non-siphoning skill every other cast on average, the transfer passive alone covers the entire ulti drain of the set, leaving you with a net gain of +3 ulti per second (from the light attack weaving).

None of these calculations take into account the heroism buffs that add a combined +2.33 ulti per second (1.5/s from major and 0.66/s from minor).

I don't think the set will be a clear BiS meta set (especially in PvE where pillar/rele/whorl/etc is just better than any of the class sets), but it is definitely something that is very usable and more than interesting enough to theory craft a build around it (something that all the class sets should have been) and it can (in theory) work very well for all content that is not at the score pushing level.