Now I'm sure some of you may be wondering whether I've gone full Joseph Joestar where the post title is concerned. After all, I do have some sort of a criminal record in terms of doing and saying things either dumb or outright wrong. There are moments where I asked myself whether I could have done better had my childhood been normal instead of someone constantly bullied just because I might have resembled half Japanese, one-quarter Ainu, and one-quarter Slav instead of a Singaporean. Then again, the hypothesis may not be true given the fact university students are capable of breaking the law in Singapore.
What will this post be about
My personal thoughts on what many ESO players would call the 3-trait craftable BiS set. Currently, the game got three craftable BiS sets for DPS: Hunding's Rage (6 traits), Law of Julianos (6 traits), and Diamond's Victory (5 traits). At the first glance, Order's Wrath looks like a ridiculously cheap BiS craftable, something like Armor of the Seducer plus the roids. But are things really that straightforward?
DISCLAIMER!
What you read here are my views. Depending on the way you build things and how you see things, chances are that you'd disagree with me. I don't profess to have the knowledge of streamers, let alone one like Asmongold. You've been warned.
Order's Wrath... now this set's bonuses look terribly crazy. It's going to supplant Gryphon's Ferocity and Gryphon's Reprisal due to similar stats bonuses and being a critical DPS set. That's until ZOS set us up a CP bomb.
TLDR: Fighting Finesse will give you only 6% additional critical damage while Backstabber should give only 10% additional critical damage from the flank. So what does the math mean?
Under the current patch, you should have 10% critical damage assuming you're running a non-medium armour setup without being either a Templar or Nightblade with 25% critical damage when factoring in Backstabber. Once the next patch arrives, the math should look like this:
Base critical damage: 6%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 16%
In solo running, a 4% critical damage drop is something. Translated into running as a group and this would mean a whopping 9% drop. If you're to run with either Medusa, Tzogvin's Warband or Gryphon's Ferocity where Minor Force is available, the numbers should look like this:
Base critical damage: 16%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 26%
Otherwise, it should look like this with Order's Wrath:
Base critical damage: 14%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 24%
Because the changes affect every critical build, it's going to be a matter of which abilities you're going to use. Either that or pairing it with Medusa. For Magicka DPS builds, it may be harder if you're running a ranged build. The reason is that you only have two abilities giving Minor Force: Either morph of Accelerate or Lightweight Beast Trap.
Personally, I'm quite wary of the delayed casting time for Channeled Acceleration despite its 36-second duration while Race Against Time only lasts 12 seconds. As for Lightweight Beast Trap, I'm not confident about the Stamina sustain unless you're running with a full Well-Fitted trait gear. Yes, you have a reduced cost. But with only a 10-second duration plus the need to sustain the Minor Force as much as possible, Stamina sustain is probably going to be an issue. Interestingly, that may actually make the Well-Fitted trait useful in conjunction with the Tumbling and Expert Evasion CP boons.
If you're running a melee Magicka DPS, that's where the fun part comes if you're doing a Nightblade. The reason is that Nightblades are meant to be tactically versatile where you can experiment with plenty of theoretical stuff. Not easy but that's what makes running a Nightblade interesting. Order's Wrath with Kinra's Wrath and a full Kjalnar's Nightmare plus the Thief Mundus stone effect? That'd be a very fun build. If you're worried about another DPS group member having a full Kjalnar (i.e. an awkward situation involving a Kjalnar arms race), you can opt for the Stormfist set. An alternative to Kinra would be Arms of Relequen, but I'm not sure how it'd pan out since Relequen can't critically hit (rightfully so since that'd break the game). Merciless Resolve? That's another matter altogether.
Off-the-cuff build (front bar only!)
Lotus Fan, Merciless Resolve, Barbed Trap, Twisting Path, Inner Light
Ultimate: Flawless Dawnbreaker
Gear: Order's Wrath (Light), Stormfist x2 (Light), Relequen (Jewelry and Dagger x2)
Mundus stone: Thief
Slotted CP: Thaumaturge, Deadly Aim, Fighting Finesse, Backstabber
Some (second) thoughts
Initially, I intended to try and see whether Order's Wrath is better than Gryphon's Ferocity. So I'm going to list down how I now view the relevance of Holy Order's Wrath for each of my characters. Note that all my characters are DPS because I'm not confident enough to roll a tank and/or healer. Maybe in the future. After all, my sticker book is 100% complete for the Knightmare set, Engine Guardian, and Earthgore. Maybe Knightmare+Torug's Pact+Mighty Chudan x2 for tanking and Armour of Seducer+Magnus' Gift (have to check whether I can afford to use Olorime instead)+Earthgore for a healer.
[Note: Right now, the worry is ZOS nerfing the set somewhere down the road.
They did that for Diamond's Victory and if they could do it for a
5-trait set, what are the chances of that happening to a 3-trait Order's
Wrath? Your guess is as good as mine. Ultimately, it's probably either
the critical chance or the critical damage. Of course, there's still a chance Order's Wrath wouldn't be nerfed since the critical damage CP boons are already nerfed.]
Dark Elf Magicka Sorcerer:
This is my main and I may replace Gryphon's Fury with Order's Wrath. The reason isn't that I intend to use Lightweight Beast Trap. Rather, it's because I'd only end up with 2% less critical damage with a critical chance of 943 in exchange. A good trade-off if you're to ask me since I don't mind missing out on the Minor Expedition and Minor Force. At the same time, I decided to ditch Ring of the Wild Hunt and replaced it with a full Slimcraw. After that, I traded Slimcraw for a full Ilambris. The best thing about Ilambris is that it makes either morph of Force Shock go nuclear with a Flame Staff. Either 33% to proc or effectively 66% to proc? Tell me that's not nuclear. At the same time, Elemental Weapon still feels clunky. Great damage if I'm not running Ilambris, but I'm still more of a katana wielder than a claymore user.
As for why I won't use Lightweight Beast Trap, it's because I intend to stick with Crystal Weapon. Sure, it's going to get roided with the only question being the fine-tuning. But even without the roiding, I still intend to stick with it since I can freely use it as and when instead of a more restrictive Crystal Fragments proc game. On one hand, it's due to the risk of high latency knackering my DPS momentum (i.e. my brain feeds off adrenaline and ESO isn't exactly an Asian game if you get what I mean). On the other, I tend to thrive unfettered instead of needlessly chained. In all honesty, Crystal Fragments would amount to better DPS while Crystal Weapon would be more tactical but deal less damage.
High Elf Magicka Templar:
I don't think I'll consider Order's Wrath. The reason is that I'm currently running with a full Slimcraw, Mother's Sorrow, and Dreugh King Slayer. The third set is the reason why I say this. I'm not comfortable trading a free Major Sorcery for a higher critical chance and critical damage. I guess it's down to that personal feel, but so far this combination is functioning well for me. As a DoT-centric build relying on the Aedric Spear tree, I decided to focus on the penetration more than the critical damage. As a result, the base critical damage stands at 20% (16% come the next patch). So how did I pull it off? Just go for Lover instead of Thief. The result went much better than I expected due to a combination of 9K+ penetration, Major Sorcery, and Minor Berserk.
At this point, the only complication would be the what-if scenario where either the group healer has Combat Prayer or a fellow DPS running with a Kinra's Wrath.
Orc Stamina Nightblade:
It's a bit of an odd journey trying to spec this guy. Conventional logic dictates I should do something about upping the critical damage and running a dual-wield build with two knives. But Oblivion no, I decided to throw conventional logic out of the window. I ran with a two-handed sword with a normal Maelstrom Bow for the back bar. I ran full Kra'gh, Leviathan, and Dreugh King Slayer. And I ended up with a whopping 5K+ weapon damage. Or is that 4K+? Either way, the number is insanely unreal.
Unlike my High Elf Templar, I may switch Dreugh King Slayer for Order's Wrath due to already having insanely high base damage. Even if Order's Wrath is going to be nerfed, it doesn't take anything away from the fact I'd be changing the DPS focus from high base damage to striking a balance between base damage and critical damage. The fact I'm running the angry Orsimer with a Barbed Trap means I can up the critical damage by 10% on a prolonged basis. The only pity is that I can't replace Thief with Shadow without breaking things up. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Breton Magicka Warden:
This guy is low-critical DPS. Since I've got nothing relevant to say, I might as well point out I did a terribly dumb thing. Namely, gearing him with a 4-piece Stygian via the trader instead of crafting a 4-piece Stuhn's Favour. Yes, it's that dumb. There's a reason why and I'm not going to say it out. Because people are just going to call me an experimental moron.
One thing about Wardens is that they don't have good base sustain even for Bretons. Nightblades don't have good sustain as well, but at least they have great damage. Templars? Well, you got either morph of Restoring Aura. Without Atronach, my Warden's Magicka recovery would be locked at a 3-figure sum. With a combination of Atronach, full Stormfist, 2 Divines traits, 5 Invigorating traits, and Blue Betty? Effectively infinite Magicka plus casting Subterranean Assault with relative impunity. Don't ask me how I got this because it's due to an accidental discovery caused by my dumb mistake of buying two Stygian armour and two pieces of Stygian jewellery. More specifically the former since the Invigorating trait is a major reason why you'd sell an armour cheap. So no, accidental discovery shouldn't be an excuse for my stupidity since I had to burn 100 Transmute Crystals to change the jewellery trait to Bloodthirsty.
Note that Stormfist does work well for Magicka DPS Wardens depending on how you stack with Winter's Revenge. For me, the Update 34 changes to Arctic Blast may have less impact on me due to using area DoT stacking to maximise the Stormfist proc frequency. For group running, however, I go with Winter's Revenge and Subterranean Assault since I don't have to worry about the range. And one more thing: Wardens can be surprisingly good at nuking things depending on how you set one up.
Khajiit Magicka Nightblade:
Again, this is a probable candidate for Order's Wrath. The reason lies in the racial passive and the fact I'm now running the cat on Shadow. In other words, I don't mind a reduction of 2% critical damage in exchange for 943 critical chance (i.e. I'm now gearing him with Gryphon's Ferocity with Mother's Sorrow and full Slimcraw). In fact, I have two options: Switch Gryphon's Ferocity for Order's Wrath or do the same with Mother's Sorrow.
The reason is the change made to Ambush for the next patch. With Minor Berserk given upon execution, it means I won't have to rely on full Slimcraw. More specifically, full Slimcraw would be redundant when the 6th day of Oda Nobunaga's birth and death anniversary month says hi. Even for a Magicka Nightblade, I wouldn't mind going with Slimcraw x1 and Iceheart x1. In this way, I don't have to break things by switching Shadow for Thief (i.e. that'd be a massive critical ouch if I'm to replace Mother's Sorrow instead of Gryphon's Ferocity). In the worst-case scenario where Order's Wrath would be nerfed via the critical chance, I'll just switch Siphoning Attacks for Mirage due to the front bar weapon trait being Sharpened. If I'm to prioritise between which toon to gear Order's Wrath first, it'd be this cat.
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