Thundercut

Armor Types

Gear and Item Set Info

Disclaimer:

This is not a cookie cutter build. It will require a little tweaking to fit your chosen race. However, all the information to do this has been provided so you shouldn’t have any issues.

Gear

5x Thunderbug’s Carapace

5x Storm Knight’s Plate

2x Swarm Mother

Glyphs

Health/Magicka/Stamina glyphs are chosen based on achieving our stat total pre-requisites (buffed) of 28k Health, 20k Stamina and 20k+ Magicka.

Armour: Health/Magicka/Stamina

Weapons: Absorb Stam/Crushing

Jewellery: Reduce Cost/Recovery

Traits

Infused traits are desirable on the main armor pieces (Helm, Chest, Legs and Shield). Sturdy traits on everything else assuming you have hit the stat targets.

Armour: Infused/Sturdy

Weapons: Infused/Decisive

Jewellery: Robust/Arcane/Healthy

Mundus Stone

Again, Lord/Mage/Tower based on achieving target stat values. Atronach/Serpent/Steed if you have made the targets. Personal choice here.

Lord/Mage/Tower/Atronach/Serpent/Steed

Summary:

Gear is always going to be different for every player. The idea is to hit the target stat values (buffed) of 28k Health, 20k Stamina and 30-33k Resistances then pump Magicka as high is you can (20k+).

Depending on which Race you choose, you will need to use different glyphs and Mundus Stone to hit the targets. If you have chosen an Imperial for example, you will probably need full Glyphs of Magicka, but as a Dunmer or Altmer, you may need to be using Glyphs of Health or Stamina instead. If you can hit the caps using Glyphs of Prismatic Defense, do so. The goal is to boost Magicka as much as possible after the targets have been met.

General Info

Playstyle:

This build is centred around abusing the set bonuses of Thunderbug’s Carapace and Storm Knights Plate in order to do huge trash mob pulls and burn them down quickly. I have purposely avoided using damage shields and damage reflection in order to maximise the uptime of the set procs. Instead we aim to max Resistances for mitigation and have self healing abilities slotted.

The Swarm Mother set partially automates our Unrelenting Grip ability, pull any aggroed ranged mobs into our zone of death and reduces the need to spam Unrelenting Grip, saving us Magicka.

Buffs & Debuffs:

This build has a lot of buffs & debuffs that you will need to be aware of.

Buffs + Duration:

1. Minor Heroism (9s – Heroic Slash)
2. Major Resolve + Major Ward (20s – Volatile Armor)
3. Major Sorcery + Brutality (30s – Igneous Weapons)
4. Major Fortitude + Endurance (20s – Green Dragon Blood)
5. Minor Brutality (20s – Eruption, Igneous Weapons [Mountain’s Blessing])

Debuffs + Duration:

1. Major Fracture + Breach (12s – Pierce Armor)
2. Minor Maim (12s – Heroic Slash)
3. Minor Maim (4s – Choking Talons)

Ability Breakdown:

Main Bar

Unrelenting Grip: Self explanatory. Pull mobs in close. Small movespeed buff.

Pierce Armor: Debuff high priority targets. Melee taunt.

Choking Talons: This is what locks our trash mobs in place and reduces their damage to you so they can trigger our set procs. Used in combination with Eruption, Draw Essence and Volatile Armor to aggro large trash mobs.

Draw Essence: Heal and Magicka refund. Increasing effectiveness based on the number of mobs within an 8m radius. Not to be used as a panic heal, due to the 2.5 delay. Using this properly is all about the timing.

Eruption: Big slow with nice AOE DOT to hold aggro and slow any escape attempts once the talons expire. Additional: Restores 5% Stamina per cast [Helping Hands]. Gives Minor Brutality [Mountain’s Blessing].

Magma Armor: Panic Button. Also shields allies on activation, so it can be used to save team members as well as yourself.

Back Bar

Inner Rage: Ranged taunt with a nice AoE synergy. Useful for everything that you can’t grab with chains. Also good for keeping aggro on multiple sources without having to adjust your position.

Heroic Slash: Debuff high damage targets. Ultimate generation. Slow.

Volatile Armor: Our main damage mitigation tool that applies a DoT on activation. Keep this up 100% of the time.

Green Dragon Blood:Our main source of stamina/health recovery. Keep this up 100% of the time. It is also gives us a strong emergency heal. Heals for 33% of missing health. i.e. the lower you are, the more effective it will be.

Igneous Weapons: Increases spell damage and weapon damage for the whole team for 30s. Also grants Minor Brutality to you for 20s on activation due to [Mountains Blessing]. In a pinch, this or Eruption can be spammed to regain 5% Stamina per cast due to [Helping Hands]. Keep this up 100% of the time.

Aggressive Horn: Save for Bosses. Massive buff.

Additional Information:

You may wonder why I haven’t included some of the tanking staples such as Defensive Posture, Obsidian Shield and Reflective scales etc. This is because these abilities either reflect damage or shield damage from you. We want to be constantly taking damage to maximise the uptime of our set procs. So the aim not to avoid taking damage, but to mitigate all incoming damage as much as possible and pick up the difference with a little bit of self healing. Because of this, our absolute priority is to hit the Spell/Physical Resistance cap and then stack as much health as possible, whilst also keeping Stamina and Magicka high enough to allow the build to be effective. You can see the target numbers at the top of the page.

Champion Point Tips

After pumping the majority of points into the priority passives, spread some points around in the optional passives to round out your build.

Blue

Main Priority: Elemental Expert

Options: Spell Erosion, Elfborn, Blessed.

Green

Main Priority: Magician, Arcanist

Options: Mooncalf, Shadow Ward, Bashing Focus, Tumbling

Red

Main Priority: Elemental Defender, Hardy

Options: Quick Recovery, Heavy Armor Focus, Spell Shield

Note: Heavy Armor Focus and Spell Shield will not be required if you have hit the 33k hard cap.

Build Rating