In Update 39, there will be three new Monster Sets being added to the Elder Scrolls Online. These monster sets will be sourced from PvP locations and thus focused around improving your prowess in PvP situations.
The new monster sets are:
Today we'll be reviewing these new sets to help you decide which ones you would like to get, if any.
How to Get the New Monster Sets in ESO
While the new monster sets are currently unavailable, this will change when Update 39 launches on August 21 for PC/Mac, or September 5 for consoles.
Once the update is live, you'll be able to buy boxes from Elite Gear Vendors in Cyrodiil for 50,000 AP. Each box will contain a randomly generated piece of the corresponding set.
If you like the look of the sets visually then you can also buy the style pages for 150,000 AP from the War Researcher Vendor. This will allow you to access their appearance at an Outfit Station.
Update 39 Monster Set Review
Now we will take a closer look at each new monster set, and how good each one is for PvP and PvE.
Jerall Mountains Warchief Set Review
Jerall Mountains Warchief is the first of the three new monster sets being added to ESO in Update 39. Wearing 1 piece grants you extra weapon and spell damage.
Wearing both pieces gives you the ability to put a healing debuff on your enemy, up to 35% reduced healing received. This isn't without a drawback though, as you'll also reduce your own healing received by up to 15%. These are the maximum values, and will change depending how many times the effect is stacked. Stacks are gained each time you damage an enemy.
This effect has a couple of potential applications. Firstly, it could be really good in duels, particularly if you're dueling someone who has really high self-healing. Builds like this can be really difficult and annoying to beat if they're also mitigating a lot of damage. So an effect like this can be really useful, especially as you can stack this with Minor Defile and Major Defile.
Another application is to use this on a debuff tank build, since nothing in the set description suggests there's a limit on how many targets you can debuff at once, you could spearhead your group's attacks by putting this debuff on an enemy group. This may be a little bit difficult to pull off though, as you can only apply a stack to a target once per 0.5 seconds, and you need 35 stacks to hit the maximum effect.
In PvE however this set is of basically no use at all - healing PvE enemies can almost always be interrupted with a bash, and when they can't it's normally because of a mechanic. Simply put it's just not worth using a monster set to debuff the healing of PvE enemies, at least not in any situations that I can think of. Using a set like Magma Incarnate or Nazaray on your support build will yield much better results.
Nibenay Bay Battlereeve Set Review
Next up is the Nibenay Bay Battlereeve set. While the previous set was themed around debuffing enemies, this is a much more defensive set. Wearing 1 piece will give you some extra Critical Resistance, which is always a solid defensive stat for PvP.
Wearing both pieces will allow you to gain a 15k damage shield for 5 seconds whenever you are moved by a pull, knockback or teleport ability, with a 14 second cooldown. When the damage shield is not active, you instead get a 5% resistance to all damage from enemy players, which can be stacked with buffs like Major Protection.
This set is maybe a little bit niche, but it is most definitely annoying when you're playing PvP and suddenly get yanked into the middle of an enemy group by someone who is spamming chains. A lot of zergs in my experience have "the chains guy" somewhere in their ranks. So this set does give you a bit of extra safety and some time to recover when this happens to you.
The 5% passive mitigation is also nice if you're trying to make a tank build focused around raw mitigation, but it's not a huge amount.
Again, for PvE this set doesn't provide much value. There's a few fights in the game where you can get knocked around a lot, and you could use this if you're really struggling to survive there for some reason. But generally this set is only worth using in PvP.
As a side note, you may be wondering if you can trigger this set by teleporting yourself. I tested this and currently that doesn't work.
Colovian Highlands General Set Review
Finally we have the Colovian Highlands General monster set. This is the most offensive-minded of the three new sets, and it also has some decent potential for group support. Wearing one piece gives you some extra Offensive Penetration, which is a great way of increasing your damage output, especially against targets in Heavy Armour.
When wearing both pieces, you'll get a stack of Blood Debt for 0.5 seconds when you kill an enemy player. When the stacks expire, you and up to 5 group members gain 15 Ultimate for each stack. This set is a perfect fit for aggressive playstyles, and will work especially well in organized AOE train groups. Actually I can see it working a little too well for these groups. If everyone is wearing this, things could get out of control pretty easily.
You could wear the set solo as well, but it will be of less value than wearing it in a group.
For PvE you could wear one piece for the extra Offensive Penetration. This is a good way of increasing your damage output, particularly when solo or in a group without much support. But there's no point in wearing both pieces, it will do literally nothing at all as the effect can only trigger on enemy players.
We hope you liked this article about the Update 39 Monster Sets in ESO. The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
