Introduction
On this page we will be going over the five (or rather, six) item sets that all DPS players should have if they want an easier time joining and helping in raids.
Even tanks and healers should strongly consider getting these sets as the sets can be extremely useful to have in a variety of different scenarios depending on your raid composition, itemization and of course the boss or trash fights themselves in Trials.
Included on this page for each item set are some example setups that were retrieved from the private ESOLogs of endgame raid groups.
War Machine and Master Architect
Post-2021 and post-2022 hybridization changes essentially made War Machine and Master Architect the same exact item set with the only difference being that Master Architect gives Maximum Magicka and War Machine gives Maximum Stamina.
The above setup comes from a DPS spec giving Major Slayer (with the offtank also giving the Major Slayer from using either War Machine or Master Architect) to their group in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium Hard Mode. In this example, the player is combining a full damage-oriented item set such as Kinras's Wrath with a support DPS item set (Master Architect).
This is done in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium Hard Mode as typically both healer/support players won't be able to optimize by equipping a Roaring Opportunist and Jorvuld's Guidance build.
Here are another couple examples of other use cases on a DPS and a healer, respectively, for other kinds of fights including combining this Major Slayer item set with another support item set we will talk about shortly:
Timing is of the utmost importance, usually the raid leads will call for when the Master Architect/War Machine user should use their Ultimate to give Major Slayer to the rest of the group.
Elemental Catalyst
Elemental Catalyst is essential for almost every Trial encounter as it boosts the Critical Damage stat of both yourself and your entire group. As of Update 36, the Critical Damage cap is 125% and Elemental Catalyst offers a free 15% Critical Damage increase towards that cap allowing other DPS to perhaps use a different Warfare slottable in place of Fighting Finesse or even replacing the usage of Minor Force skills such as Trap or Channeled Acceleration depending on scenario or setup.
Here are some Catalyst setup examples (reminder that the set does not proc off of enchantments as of Update 33):
As you can see from these different setups, all of them have one thing in common: Necromancer. The class in itself makes it a lot easier to keep up Catalyst due to them having sources of fire damage, shock damage and frost damage like from Skull, Mystic Siphon and Boneyard. Catalyst as an item set synergizes incredibly well with the Necromancer class and it's not too much of a player skill heavy item set to use for the benefit of your raid teams.
Of course, you don't have to be a Necromancer or even a DPS to use the Catalyst set, you can be a tank in specific scenarios such as below for Asylum Sanctorium Hard Mode:
Z'en's Redress
Z'en's Redress gives a unique 5% damage debuff modifier on target to the entire group including the user of the item set and will always be in play for all single target or boss fights.
Much like how Catalyst synergizes well with Necromancer, Z'en's synergizes well with Dragonknight. In fact you can see from this Z'en's Redress guide why that is (hint: Damage over Time effects).
Some examples of setups with Z'en's Redress:
Just like with Master Architect, War Machine or Elemental Catalyst, you can set up Z'en's Redress with either a damage oriented item set such as Siroria or Relequen and so on or with another support item set such as Alkosh or even Martial Knowledge which we will also go over.
The below example is even from the front healer in Asylum Sanctorium Hard Mode doing both Z'en's Redress and Martial Knowledge for the benefit of the group.
Martial Knowledge
Like Z'en's Redress, Martial Knowledge is also a unique damage boost for the group in the form of a 8% damage debuff modifier on target. Unlike Catalyst and Z'en's Redress however, it does demand a higher level of skill play with managing your Stamina pool to be below 50% but not too low to the point you won't be able to roll dodge or block just like the rest of the group.
Here are some setup examples with Martial Knowledge:
Usually most Martial Knowledge users do pair it with a damage oriented item set unless they're asked to use Elemental Catalyst with it.
Alkosh
Last, but certainly not least, is Roar of Alkosh. It was previously a must-have staple set that tanks had to equip from 2016 up until 2021. It was meta for literally over 5 years for the tanks to wear but after many iterations and changes, it finally became more suitable for the DPS players to wear this set.
As of Update 36, the best raid composition and itemization lean towards medium armor DPS for the most part which means they often lack the Penetration from not wearing Light Armor. That means for boss fights in particular, in order to reach the penetration amount of 18,200 (the resistance cap of all bosses), a DPS needs to wear Alkosh!
This is probably the most demanding item set in terms of player skill as it's imperative a DPS player not mash the synergy and time a synergy use roughly every 9.x - 10 seconds to keep it up and even more intensive if it's only on one bar which means you can't synergize on the bar that it isn't active on depending on your setup.
Here's one example of a support oriented setup:
A very popular item set to pair with Z'en's Redress is actually Alkosh on the same person:
Otherwise, damage sets like Relequen are often paired with Z'en's Redress!
Conclusion
As you can see, the support damage item sets are quite important and in most cases very easy to use. Often times the most demanded role besides support (tanks/healers) for raid rosters are people who can run these item sets. Any player can "parse" or be a full DPS player but not everyone wants to, doesn't have these item sets or can even use a couple of these well, so if you're having a hard time breaking into the raiding scene as a player, having these item sets may increase your chances with the raid leads!