This is part of a series examining ESO sets which provide the Major Slayer group buff, particularly for Magicka compositions. Obviously how to get a group to pump out the most damage is an extremely complex topic, and I won’t presume to know everything or think of everything, but I can go through the things I know. I’m writing this while the Stonethorn DLC is in PTS, so any references to “current” meta refer to the meta as it existed March 26, 2020 through August 24, 2020.

In the Elder Scrolls Online meta as it existed before the Greymoor Chapter, Master Architect, War Machine, and the Tooth of Lokkestiiz sets were the only ways to get Major Slayer, a named, 15% damage-done PvE buff.

Lokkestiiz is a medium armor set intended to be worn by stamina DPS, and provides 15 seconds of Major Slayer uptime when the wearer takes a synergy. I’ll skip Lokkestiiz for now, since the tactic for ensuring high uptime is fairly straightforward. Each synergy has it’s own twenty-second cooldown, so supports must provide inbound usable synergies to everyone in the group, every 15 seconds.

Master Architect and War Machine provide this buff for 10 seconds to the wearer and “the closest 2 allies” when the wearer uses an ultimate ability. Because Stamina users already have a superior source of Major Slayer, the set we’re going to focus on is Master Architect, and some of the caveats for using it in a Magicka group.

The pre-Greymoor era strategy for Major Slayer was to split the group into two stacks of 4 DPS each, and assign one Master Architect-wearing DPS to each stack. This is a “safe” strategy, designed to prevent cross-assignment of the Major Slayer buff—that is, if both wearers are standing next to each other, it is possible they will give each other Major Slayer, and their slayer buffs will “overlap” causing total uptime across the group to decrease.

The Slayer Assignment Problem

To give some more color, let’s assume we have 8 DPS in a tight stack, and two DPS wearing Master Architect, NOSTRA and BAR.

NOSTRA uses his ultimate, which gives 10 seconds of Major Slayer to himself, to BAR, and to a third damage dealer. Later, before the 10 seconds has expired, BAR uses her ultimate, which gives 10 seconds of Major Slayer to herself, NOSTRA, and the same third damage dealer.

In the pathological (worst-case) scenario, they both fire one after the other, and both procs happen, one after the other, and they refresh Major Slayer for one other and the same third DPS. Rather than having what you want, 6 DPS with 10s of Major Slayer (6 DPS * 10s = 60s uptime), you instead get 3 DPS with 11s (3 DPS * 11s = 33s uptime). That just cut the actual buff to your group nearly in half!

This pathological scenario assumes that Master Architect literally only applies to the two closest players to the wearer, and doesn’t take anything else into account. If you assume the set “works”, in that it applies to the wearer and the two nearest players who don’t already have Major Slayer, then you are better off, but you’re still leaving DPS on the table.

In this slightly better scenario, NOSTRA fires his ultimate and applies Major Slayer to himself, BAR and a third DPS, and BAR fires her ultimate and refreshes Major Slayer on herself, and applies it to a fourth and fifth DPS in the stack.

In the “worst-case if the proc isn’t dumb” scenario, BAR will have Major Slayer for 11s, NOSTRA and three other DPS will have 10s each, for a total of 51 seconds of Major Slayer, across the group. Now, 51s is much better than 33 seconds, but it’s still only 85% of the way to our 60s maximum.

There are two tactics which will close that gap: the first is to coordinate “Major Slayer” ultimates in the same way that we coordinate Warhorn or Colossi: have each DPS “call out” their ultimate, and the other one wait 10s (or until the slayer buff expires), then call it out again.

Call-outs are sub-optimal for two reasons: firstly, you now have random DPS calling out “Incap” or “Bear” every 15-20s during a raid, potentially talking over raid lead instructions. Secondly, Master Architect is a flat buff (note: this is changing in the Stonethorn DLC). Meaning, no matter what you do, you will always get the same buff. If you as the wearer hold your ultimate for your turn, and you end up spending 100 ulti on your 70-cost ultimate, Master Architect does not reward you for your patience. If you can cast on cooldown, then you increase the total number of seconds that Major Slayer is running.

The second option is to split the group into two stacks, and assign a Master Architect wearer to each stack. You don’t need more people coordinating ultimates, and you can be assured that you aren’t going to lose any Slayer uptime to a refresh on someone that already has it.

Combat Prayer

This “two stacks” tactic also meshes nicely with the auto-heal mechanic and the application of Minor Berserk, which is another named buff that increases damage done by 8%.

To explain, one feature of ESO is “auto-heal”, which says that healing abilities will target the player with the lowest health. If you imagine a situation where one healer is standing behind 8 DPS, when they use the Combat Prayer ability, the 6 DPS with the lowest health will be the ones who get the heal.

Unfortunately, the DPS that get the heal are also the DPS who get the Minor Berserk buff, so it’s entirely possible that the healer overcasting Combat Prayer into the full group of 8 DPS will simply refresh the Minor Berserk buff over and over to the same people, assuming they have the lowest health when the ability is cast.

However, by splitting the group into two stacks, and having a healer and a Master Architect wearer in each stack, a raid group can be confident that all the DPS in each stack will get Minor Berserk, and three of them will also have Major Slayer.