How to get the right gear
OVERVIEW
You will never get arena suitable, end game gear from drops or chests, though much of these can be used as you play through the game quests and in sigil events.
Gear for the arena needs to be made or bought from the Sigil Store.
However, you cannot craft or enchant end game gear until you have a Level 10 Smithy and a Level 10 Enchanter. You can use armour and jewelry from lower levels in the arena for quite a while, but weapons will quickly need to be dragonbone level to be fully effective. Therefore, until you have the right L10 stores, do not temper things to the maximum. Save your resources!
Lower level items that you may think are good and worth tempering will quickly be left behind as sub-par, as you level up quickly.
Early in the game you will race through the levels and your character can level up quickly, therefore any gear you make will rapidly be out of date, as your enemies in the game tend to level up even faster than you do. The levelling system is exponential, so each level requires more experience points to level up. When you reach level 50 and receive the last of your health and skill point upgrades, you are NOT 50% of the way to Level 100, you are only 2% of the way! You won’t reach 50% of the way to level 100 until you have reached level 85! If you play a lot, you can comfortably get to level 50 within a couple of months, but even playing very often daily. it will likely take 2 years to get to level 100 and more likely 4 years.
So, getting to level 50 is just the start. Now it is time to make end game gear for the arena….
You should only craft dragonbone weapons for the arena and we will cover armour types and strategies a little later below.
ENCHANTING
The purpose of enchanting is twofold. Firstly, to add attributes to the item to increase its functionality with primary enchants, like adding health, stamina, damage, elemental damage or resistance etc.
Then there is a (slim) random chance of bonus attributes, called secondary enchantments, which enhance the strength of the gear, increase weapon damage, increase armour resistance etc.
The secondary enchants are in fact the most important facet of the game, as those increased enhancements are extremely important, and they are what gives the gear its maximum benefit and makes the real difference. The long term objective of the game is to gather resources and continually enchant gear, because of the very low odds of getting two ideal secondary enchants. You can see all the chances of enchants at https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Blades:Enchanting but it doesn’t really give you an idea of how a rare it is to actually make these items.
As an example, Gretchen the Formidable has been enchanting weapons for 3 years, The Back Knight has been doing it for 2 years and between those 2 characters, they have made 1 double ravage (-Max Stamina, -Max Magicka) weapon in over 1000 attempts. This highlights the value of the sigil store weapons, where you can buy end game double ravage weapon in 2 weeks with your saved sigils! Buying the right gear from the sigil store will get you up and running with end game gear for the arena in only months versus years to craft and enchant those same quality items!
There are 3 types of gear for primary enchantments:
1. Weapons and Shields
2. Offensive gear (jewellery and gauntlets)
3. Defensive gear (helmet, chest, boots)
There are 7 primary enhancement options for each type
WEAPONS
These can be enchanted for additional elemental damage, non elemental (Stamina or Magicka) damage or Combat (increased weapon ability: small weapons – combo damage, versatile – speed, heavy – breeching damage).
The key secondaries you want are ravage (reduce for that round) Stamina or Magicka, and either is good and both is ideal, but extremely rare. The general recommendation is not to temper anything to mythical unless it has either ravage Stamina or ravage Magicka. Ravage health is not useful in the arena but can be useful in the game quests, abyss, jobs or sigil events.
Another good secondary enchant is elemental damage is X points more effective at conditioning. However, this is only useful if it occurs on an elemental enchanted weapon AND it matches the same primary enchanted element, like this frost example.
The other possible bonus secondary enchant is the increase of the primary enchantment. This is very useful for the combat enchantment, somewhat useful for the non elemental enchant, but not very helpful for the elemental enchant in the arena, but again, those can be useful for the game quests, abyss, jobs and sigil events.
SHIELDS
These are both a defensive and an attacking piece of gear. They offer a high level of protection against incoming weapons, which can vary depending on type and built in attributes and their secondary enchants. They can offer increased defensive resistances against damage types and elemental damage and/or increased regeneration of Magika or Stamina. When used for blocking they can stun and cause damage, plus when used for bashing they are effectively a second weapon, causing damage and other impairments, depending on their attributes.
Shields can be enchanted for additional elemental damage, non elemental Stamina or Magicka damage or increased damage on blocking.
Shields have the same secondary bonus enchant options as weapons. Note, if the elemental damage is X points more effective at conditioning secondary enchantment is on your weapon AND your shield, this enchantment will benefit from the Enchantment Synergy (ES) multiplier, making it much easier to condition your opponent.
We will cover shields in more depth in the character build sections, but it is generally preferred to start with a stamina enchantment to shut down opponents who spam quick strikes against you. Other primary enchantments have their various uses, but the quick strikers are far more likely than anyone else to voluntarily hit your shield.
OFFENSIVE GEAR (Jewelry and Gauntlets)
Each necklace you craft or buy will have 0-5 perk bonuses. However, don’t bother enchanting ANY necklaces that do not have the Enchantment Synergy perk (ES) 4 or 5!!! Other attributes can be useful, but ES is ESSENTIAL. Early in the game you can enchant ES 3, but you will want to replace it as soon as you can.
Primary elemental enchants for necklaces cause retaliation damage for that element and if enchanted with Health, Stamina or Magicka then it increases regeneration of that attribute.
Necklace secondaries can increase attack damage and also have a chance of a unique secondary enchantment, shorten stun.
Rings you craft or buy will have 0-5 attributes that increase spells and/or abilities. Your needs for these attributes will vary depending on your character build style, with a mage wanting matched high level spells, heavy weapon users wanting no boosts to abilities etc. Depending on your needs, some rings will be useful and should be enchanted, and some rings should be discarded/sold as their attributes will hinder your performance. Details of what your ring requirements should be, will be covered in the character build style sections.
Primary elemental enchants for rings cause additional elemental damage for that element and, if enchanted with Health, Stamina or Magicka, then it regenerates that attribute based on the type of damage done to your opponent.
While secondaries on rings and gauntlets can increase attack damage and also have a unique secondary of prolonging a conditioning.
Primary elemental enchants for gauntlets cause additional elemental damage for that element and if enchanted with Health, Stamina or Magicka then it regenerates that attribute based on the type of damage done.
Although the primary enchants for gauntlets are around increasing attack damage, they also count towards your armour rating. ‘Scale’/"mail" type armours have additional native/inherent elemental and physical resists. Note these built-in additional resistances are not enchantments so do NOT get multiplied by ES, however, they will increase with tempering.
All of the elemental damage and the same secondaries stack (add up) and if you have more than one of any primary enchant or secondary bonus enchant, they will get multiplied by the ES multiplier.
Ideally you want multiples of secondary enchants on your attack gear to get boosted by the ES multiplier perk. With 2 rings, gauntlets and necklace you can have up to 4 of the same secondary enchant.
Note, if the right requirements are not met, these secondary enchantments have no effect. So, for example, if your opponent is not conditioned, then PDOC and EDOC are not activated. If your opponent has no elemental resistance on their armour, doesn’t cast the Reset Elements spell or use a resist potion, then EDIR has no effect.
Many argue PDIA and EDIR are the best secondaries, as they are "always on" and always in effect. However, PDOC and EDOC do the most damage, but you need a strategy to ensure your opponent is conditioned. Other players favor the PDOC and PDIA combo. Most of the time, your builds will be a mixture of secondaries based on what items you have. You can find more info on these tactics in the character build sections that follow.
DEFENSIVE GEAR (helmet, chest, boots)
Traditionally, the sole purpose of armour is to provide a warrior with protection from incoming damage, and this is certainly one of the functions of the armour in Blades.
However, because health is tripled in the arena, the primary health enchant has a significantly enhanced effect and is arguably more important than the armour’s damage resistance. When you add three tripled primary health armour pieces to your loadout with ES 5, it can increase your health by 60%. This means your opponent has to do 60% more damage to beat you in the arena. In addition, because elemental conditioning is calculated on total damage equivalent to 25% of your base health (the health value before entering the arena) within 5 seconds, increased health means you are harder to condition.
For example, to be set on fire (fire conditioning), if your base health was 1000, would require 250 fire damage within 5 seconds to activate conditioning. If you don't wear three armour pieces you base health is 690, so only 173 fire damage is required to condition you. This is when the secondaries like PDOC and EDOC become active, and their increased damage is inflicted. In the game you can wear elemental resistant armour pieces to prevent conditioning and reduce elemental damage, but in the arena, although using an elemental resist piece of armour can reduce some of the element’s damage getting through, because your health is less, then less elemental damage is required to condition you. Therefore, top players almost never use elemental resist unless they’re up against a very predictable opponent.
Primary enchants for defensive gear are element resistances, Health, Stamina or Magicka. However, because of the tripling of health in the arena, conventional wisdom for armour enchants is health is best on all defensive armour. You could also use a piece with a Stamina or Magicka enchant for specialized builds, if you want to use more abilities or spells, but those are best used sparingly and covered in more depth in the character builds sections.
ARMOUR RATING (AR)
You will see an armour rating on your gear and when you first match with an opponent it will show on the splash screen for both of you. This Armour Rate (AR) number represents the combined AR of your 4 armour pieces: helmet, chest, boots and gauntlets. When you are hit with a weapon, 10% of the armour rating is deducted from that incoming blow. So, if your AR is 1000, then 100 is taken off each incoming weapon hit or shield bash. Plate armour has the highest armour rating and therefore reduces the most damage.
However, scale/mail armour has built in physical (and elemental) resistances which is also deducted from each hit. These numbers are as stated, not 10%. So, for example if you have a full set of Dragonscale armour with its native cleaving resist, that will total 51 cleaving resistance (from your 4 pieces) and have a basic AR of 818, this means 82 + 51 = 133 will be taken off each hit from a cleaving weapon. In addition, secondary enchants that included physical resistance are also added to the total resistance and deducted from the incoming hit. Note in this example if you are hit with a bashing weapon, only 82 is taken off (before we include secondary enchantments).
Dragonbone and Dragonscale are the highest rated armour, however, these are not essential for success in the arena. You can be successfully competitive with Daedric and even Ebony armour. The Black Knight currently has sigil store Ebony (divine pieces that are the same as Dragonbone), but used standard Ebony armour for his first year with a plate AR of 840, and was able to stay in the yop 100, so though it does take 20 more damage per hit than Dragonbone it can still be competitive. Work on getting a reasonable set of armour with health enchants to start, but focus more on weapons first, then gauntlets and jewellery, then long term work on better armour.
Secondaries on defensive gear can increase resistances and shorten conditioned time.
For the arena, the secondary enchantments you want are the ones that are not health based, as these effects are not tripled in the arena, though the exception is the increased primary enchant, as this increases your primary health on armour, and is therefore multiplied when entering the arena. So, it is the physical resists, spell resist and shorten condition that are the main secondaries that you want on your armour.
As always, matching secondary enchantments are increased by the ES multiplier.
Mixtures of the armour secondaries have various nick names, and we will cover the 3 main types here, Spell Resist (SR) and Shorten, Turtle and Half Turtle.
In the early seasons of Blades, the Spell Resist (SR) and Shorten set of armour on all three defensive armour pieces was seen as the "holy grail" armour. With 3 of each of these secondaries and ES 5, this provided 63 resistance from all incoming spells and reduced conditioning time by almost 60%, so instead of lasting lasting 5 seconds, the length of time you are conditioned is reduced to only 2 seconds.
More popular today is what is called a Turtle set. This has 2 of each type of physical resists (slashing, bashing and cleaving) and with ES 5 this provides an additional 42 resistance to all weapon damage on top of the AR.
A variation on the Turtle set is a Half Turtle, with one of each physical resists providing 17 resistance to all weapons damage (no ES because only one of each enchantment) and either 3 x SR, 3 x Shorten or 3 x extra Health (ES does multiply these 3 x enchantments).
A variation on the turtle set is a Super Turtle, where you use the scale armour’s built in physical resistances combined with 3 x the other two physical resists. Using the Dragonscale example from above, which has 51 cleaving resistance built into its full set naturally, you could add 3 x Slashing and 3 x Bashing to add (with ES 5) 63 resistance for those 2 physical damages. Note this is extremely difficult to achieve, as not only do you have to get 2 physical resistance secondaries, but they also need to match with the armour pieces as well. Gretchen The Formidable has been working towards that goal and has come fairly close. For other built in resistances you can buy divine armour pieces from the sigil store that have the equivalent AR, as well as Matching Set benefits, as Dragonscale.
Extra regeneration armor:
Magicka regeneration and lots of it: elven armour and shields from the sigil store are a mage’s best friends, since a very high regeneration allows you to cast spells faster and more frequently. It’s all about having options during long fights, since you’re using magic both as defense and offense. This is less important for a battlemage type, as you’re spending half your time using abilities as well. More on that in the battlemage character build section.
Stamina regeneration and lots of it: If you’re going to spam tons of strikes and bashes, or go for Reckless Fury (RF), hide armor armour and shields from the sigil store are the ones for you. It’s the worst armor style for protection though, since everything else makes you stronger against a physical damage and/or an element (or in the case of elven, lets you cast RE more often). It is, however, excellent for expanding your offensive capabilities.
ENCHANTING STRATEGIES
There are 2 issues with enchanting. The first is the resources required, with maximum level 10 enchants requiring a Transcendent Soul Gem (TSG), 2 Glorious Soul Gems and 4 Grand Souls Gems (GSG). Each of these are rare and are a significant bottleneck for enchanting. The second issue is the low chance of good secondaries, meaning you have to do many enchants to get worthwhile gear to keep. These 2 factors mean it takes a very long time to get really good gear, many many months and most long term players are still regularly enchanting, for years.
So, how can you get some passable gear to get you up and running in the arena and at least somewhat competitive, while you wait for those special unicorn pieces?
It is a good idea, especially in your early arena seasons, to enchant 1 level down from maximum enchantments. This will cost only 1 or 2 GSGs and no TSGs. This will get you values like PDOC of 18/22 (instead of 26) or EDIR of 4/5 (instead of 6), however, you will be able to enchant 3 times as many items, so you will end up with more useable items quicker. For example, let’s assume you where to get 1 PDOC of 26 from 50 maximum enchants, if instead you spread out your resources with lower level enchants, you could do 150 enchants and potentially get 2 or 3 PDOC pieces, for example PDOCs of 18 and 22. Although you would want to replace each of these long term, you will have now have a cumulative PDOC of 40 (which will be 48 if you have a neck with ES 4). This will be far more effective than the 1 PDOC maximum of 26.
If you find, make or buy an item with really good attributes (rings with spells you use or necklaces with ES4/5) then do a maximum enchant, and for other pieces, a lower level enchant until you put together a reasonable set of gear. Then long term, as collecting resources becomes easier, you can do more maximum enchants and slowly upgrade each piece.
ARMOUR STRATEGIES
Each set has advantages and disadvantages, with SR/S being great against Mages, Turtle being great versus Heavy Weapon users and Stamina players. Unfortunately, you don’t have time between rounds to change all 3 defensive pieces manually. There are a couple of armour strategies that try to provide a quick, easy way to use 2 armour types in the arena.
Swanne Swap
The first we will call the Swanne Swap. This is because it was explained to me by a player called Swanne and although he was taught it by another player, Galadriel, Swanne was the one who shared it and explained it to others, and Swanne Swap has nice ring to it.
Basically, you leave one loadout empty of all offensive gear (weapons, shield, jewellery and gauntlets) with only your other armour set in that blank loadout. Your four other loadouts all have their matching sets of offensive gear and one has your favoured armour set. This means you can click on your main armour set loadout, then click on any other and that armour will remain.
Alternatively, you can click on any of your four main attack loadouts, then choose the blank set with the alternative armour and your armour is automatically swapped in for the other set and your attack gear remains. Note to maintain a matched set, all armour pieces need to be the same type.
For example, let’s say we have 4 loadouts, Shock, Frost, Fire, Poison and a Turtle. Your SR/S set of armour is in loadout 1 (Shock) and you Turtle armour is in the blank loadout 5. Your other 3 loadouts (Frost, Fire and Poison) have no armour assigned.
If you decide you want to use SR/S armour with your fire attack load out, click on loadout 1, then click on loadout 3. If you decide you want to use Turtle armour set with your fire offensive loadout, then click on loadout 5, then load out 3.
Gretchen Gambit
I used the Swanne Swap strategy for a season, but I missed the 5th loadout’s offensive attack and wanted to use 2 types of armour across 5 offensive options. So, I came up with what I will call the Gretchen Gambit (until someone thinks of a better name).
This system uses 5 loadouts with 2 having armour and 3 without armour. It allows four to be one armour type and four to be another armour type, though 2 are locked into their primary armour set. For this example, we will have 5 loadouts of Poison, Shock, Non-Elemental, Frost, Fire. The first (Poison) has a Turtle armour set and the last (Fire) has SR/S. By clicking on either loadout 1 or 5 first, then the desired offensive loadout, it allows Turtle armour to be used on Poison, Shock, Non-Elemental, Frost and SR/S armour to be used with Shock, Non-Elemental, Frost, Fire. However, you cannot use Turtle with Fire, or SR/S with Poison.
You can use these concepts for other gear options, like shields or jewellery as well. For example, the Swanne Swap could have sets of elemental rings and necklace and the 5th set could be subsuming for regeneration jewellery.
For more help with armour and strategies, join a PVP guild and discuss with their experienced players in Discord.