SPECIALISED BUILDS
The artefacts Lord’s Mail and Ebony Mail have some unique attributes that can be viable in the arena. Note, however, because they remove a health enchant option, your health is going to be about 350 lower, and their armour rating is lower, plus they are not able to be matched with anything to make a matched set. This means your lower health and lower armour rating makes you easier to be killed as you are fairly brittle.
Overview
To consider using these items you, need to have good manual and defensive skills, plus strategies to maximise your attack. As a general rule, new players should probably not use these until they are more experienced. Though there is no reason you can’t play around and experiment with these or any other artefacts in the arena for fun, but just realise it may take some time to work out how to use these effectively.
Both artefacts cause instant damage every second, Lords’ Mail: 7 health damage and Ebony Mail: 10 poison damage, though, these values are relatively ineffectual. However, there is a side effect of this damage, it triggers the subsuming effect (Stamina regeneration) and sorcerer effect (Magicka regeneration) to be activated (as does any damage you do with weapons, spells or shields). Therefore, if you have gauntlets and/or rings with these regeneration enchantments, their attributes are activated every second (without having to attack) and rapidly regenerate your Stamina and/or Magicka (depending on which enchants you have on you gauntlets or rings) even when you are waiting behind your shield.
This also works with health regeneration and therefore in PvE it makes Lord’s mail extremely useful for events, abyss and jobs. A set of health regeneration jewellery and gauntlets with Lord's Mail will regenerate health so fast, you can stand in front of Lich’s, deep in the abyss (100 plus levels down) and heal faster than they can damage you! However, this effect is reduced by 2/3rds in the Arena because your base health is tripled when you enter the arena but healing effects/regen are not. It should be noted at least 1 player (and only 1 as far as I am aware) has made a health regen/Lord’s mail set up work well in the arena and maintain a top 100 rank. However, that was probably as much to do with their manual skills as their build setup, so not really a recommended arena build strategy.
Lord's Mail
This offers 68 poison resistance and 17 spell resistance in addition to its heath regeneration and opponent’s health damage. It cannot be matched with anything for a matched set, but additional Spell Resistance on helm and boots will stack and multiply with Enchantment Synergy (ES). If you combine Lord’s mail with regeneration jewellery and gauntlets you can benefit from the increased Magicka and/or stamina regeneration and health regeneration.
The idea is to be defensive, hide behind your shield while triggering all the regeneration effects and stun you opponent then attack. The stunning option can be a manual defensive block, bashing or using incapacitating spells like Paralyse or Ice Spike.
Just be aware that you are giving up 35 to 40 points of raw elemental damage when you don’t use rings and gloves that are enchanted to match your elemental spells. Assuming the spells are fairly powerful, this is not usually a noticeable trade off. Your Ice Spike and Paralyze will get easier to defend against, though, since you still have to make it above a minimum threshold of damage to get the stun or paralysis effect.
You will likely have to take steps to neutralize your opponent’s ability to defend against elemental damage, generally by taking away their ability to cast RE or Ward.
Hitting them with a shock or nullifying weapon, bashing with a shock or nullifying shield, or using a well-timed Harrying Bash (especially if it is boosted to level 2-4, since the ability lockout effect gets fairly long fairly quickly) are all useful methods.
Alternately, you can use aversions to make up for the damage you lose from not equipping elemental rings and gloves, but that method is fairly difficult for players to maintain long-term as potions and poisons require lots of resources and time to make in large quantities.
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If your objective is manual defensive blocking and bashing, then stack subsuming jewellery and gauntlets and use double strikes as well.
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If your objective is incapacitating spells, then stack sorcerer jewellery and gauntlets and you can use double strikes as well.
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You can also use a combination of subsuming and sorcerer pieces, an attack incapacitating spell and double strikes.
Ebony Mail
This is relatively light in its armour rating and cannot be matched with anything else for a match set. However, it does significantly increase poison damage, adding 9 poison damage to your attack plus 10 points of poison damage per second. This means when using a poison attack you can condition opponents very quickly and easily, causing poison damage when you aren’t even attacking. In addition, Ebony Mail has an extra Physical Damage On Condition (PDOC) effect, so you can do massive amounts of damage very quickly because you can stack 5 x PDOC (increased by ES). You are vulnerable to quick damage, so a heavy weapons user can kill you in 3 hits. However, if you can incapacitate your opponent, you can cut them down in 2 seconds as well, with the appropriate PDOC.
It does also have a visual effect that gives off a green/black smoke, which is the cause of the consistent 10 points of poison damage per second, plus it looks cool and intimidates your opponent.
The focus with Ebony Mail should be the PDOC, this is where it can become effective. The regeneration effect is a bonus, but not the focus. If you can stack 5 x PDOC with a small weapon, you should be able to kill (or close to it), any opponent with one incapacitation (stun/paralyse). Even with 3 x PDOC, 1 incapacitation and a couple of hits should kill most (assuming you can stay alive).
There are not many who have used Ebony Mail effectively in the higher levels in the arena, but those that have, use it with a poison attack build and the paralyse or blind spells. Remember the regeneration effect is triggered for subsuming and sorcerer pieces so this can be used to assist with defensive and attack spells, plus provide stamina for bashes and quick strikes.
Energy exchange
The regeneration effects are not only triggered by Lord’s and Ebony mail, they are also triggered by any attack that does damage, including weapons, spells, shields and retaliatory necklaces.
So effectively using Magicka on attack spells such as Paralyse, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Delayed Lightning Bolt, Ice Spike and Blind (note the Blind effect lasts 5 seconds but the damage is only in the initial spell cast) in turn triggers a one off regeneration of Magicka (and/or Stamina depending on you jewellery and gauntlet enchantments). This is effectively generating Energy for Spells and Abilities, by using Spells and Abilities, so exchanging the energy from the attacking skills, to generate additional resources.
Spells like Poison Cloud, Consuming Inferno and Frostbite regenerate Magicka (and/or Stamina) per second while in use and spells like Wall of Fire and Thunderstorm trigger multiple regeneration effects.
Similarly, when you use any ability, you are also regenerating stamina (and/or Magicka).
Retaliation necks also cause the regeneration effects every time your opponent attacks with elemental damage.
Just remember you are trading less elemental damage by not using elemental rings and gauntlets that matched your attack (weapon/spells), so opponents will be harder to condition and spells harder to make stick. However, you should be able to use abilities and/or spells more frequently.