ESO Sets Build Guide: Bahraha’s Curse – Life Leecher
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ESO Sets Build Guide: Bahraha’s Curse – Life Leecher

Welcome to the fourth installment of a weekly segment where we dive into one Elder Scrolls Online’s many Sets, and explore what sort of Builds you can make. Not only will we show you how to get the most from these Sets, but we’ll explain where to get them, what requirements there are to obtain them (if any), and everything else you could possibly want to know about them. This week’s Set comes in Light, Medium and Heavy Armor making it one of the more unique Sets in ESO: Bahraha’s Curse. This Set was named after Magnifico Bahraha, a necromancer in Hew’s Bane.

bahrahas_curse_eso
This Set comes in Light, Medium and Heavy and has bonuses that make it versatile enough to be used in almost any setup.

An Introduction To This Set

This Set was introduced with the Thieves Guild DLC in spring of 2016. This Set’s bonuses have never changed since it’s introduction and it can currently be found in Hew’s Bane. Access to Hew’s Bane requires the Thieves Guild DLC, however, you can purchase or trade this Set with other players because it is bind-on-equip. An interesting thing about this Set is that it comes in Light, Medium and Heavy Armor. However, you must run daily Heists  in order to obtain Medium and Heavy pieces, as only Light will drop on the landscape.

Bahrahas-Curse-Set-ESO
A heavy piece of Bahraha’s Curse Set.

Since this is a Overland Set, you can get Weapons, Shields, Armor and Jewelry. The Traits on this Armor are random, so you may have to farm in order to get the ones that you need. Jewelry for this set comes in Arcane, which makes it only useful to Magicka builds. The really interesting thing about this Set, as mentioned above, is that it comes in Light, Medium and Heavy Armor, making it extremely versatile. Since it’s bind-on-equip it is still possible to find some pieces out there that are not Light if you look hard enough.

I could not get this set to deal higher than 1195 Magic Damage at Champion Rank 160 at Legendary quality. However the heal will increase if you have +% Healing Taken or if you have +% Healing Done. The chance to proc and amount that it reduces Movement Speed (70%) do not change no matter level or quality. Since this Set is a “proc Set” it cannot Critically Strike on either the damage or the heal it does.

Movement Speed Reduction Information

One of the great things about this Set is that it reduces the Movement Speed of the target by 70% while they are standing in the the AoE. However, there are some things you need to know about Movement Speed Reduction that are seemingly nowhere to be found on the internet. I took the time to do some research and although I am not certain it’s 100% accurate, I am confident that what I have witnessed with my own eyes is fairly damn close.

vampires_bane_eso
Both of the these Abilities have Movement Speed Reduction.

Firstly, from all my testing, Movement Speed debuffs from Abilities do NOT stack. That means if you cast 2 or more Abilities on a target that reduce its Movement Speed by a certain amount, they won’t all add up or multiply up and effect it. Instead what happens is that the highest Movement Speed Reduction will apply, overwriting the lower value, and if it wears off first the other will come back into effect. For all intents and purposes the game considers the Movement Speed Reduction from Bahraha’s Curse an Ability.

Second, Weapon Poisons that reduce Movement Speed WILL stack multiplicatively with Ability Movement Speed Reductions. What this means is: if you cast an Ability that reduces the target’s Movement Speed by 40% and then apply a Weapon Poison that reduces it by 50% the target will have a Movement Speed Reduction of 70%. The Weapon Poison will reduce the remaining 60% Movement Speed by half (50%), down to 30%, making for a total reduction of 70%. If my math is correct the highest Movement Speed Reduction you can have on a target is 85%.

weapon_poison_eso
You can see on the debuff bar for your target what it looks like when you have a Weapon Poison on them.

What You Need To Know About This Set

How this Set works is: whenever you damage an enemy you have a 25% chance to cast Bahraha’s Curse on the ground for 5 seconds. It doesn’t matter if it’s direct damage, damage over time, an AoE, or a Light or Heavy Attack. Just any sort of damage. When Bahraha’s Curse procs it will land under the targets feet no matter how far they are from you, and will begin dealing damage, healing you and reducing their Movement Speed as long as they are standing on it. If they move out if it, the effect will remain but will no longer affect them.

bahraha's curse effect eso
When the Set procs you will see a bluish Oblivion Gate symbol on the ground (similar to Fire Rune).

You can only have one Bahraha’s Curse up at once, and you can’t have this on multiple targets. Bahraha’s Curse will vanish if a) the 5 seconds are up or b) the target dies. Since there is no cooldown, the instant either of these happen Bahraha’s Curse can proc again. This means if you stack a few DoTs on your target then there will most likely be no downtime between Curses. It also means that if you have DoTs on multiple targets that you may proc this under a different target than intended.

Master-at-Arms and Elemental Expert in the Champion System both affect the damage and thereby the healing this Set will do. And, although it doesn’t increase the tooltip, Spell Erosion will increase the damage on the target as well by removing resistance. Blessed and Quick Recovery will also increase your healing of this, but not your damage.

Notes For PvE Players

This Set can work extremely well for Tanks because it allows them to heal themselves with a HoT that they can keep up nearly 100% of the time. Since Leeching Plate has a very similar effect, just with a smaller proc chance, consider pairing these two Sets for best results. Adding something like Swarm Mother may help increase the overall effectiveness of a setup like this, since it will pull in enemies you block, increasing your damage dealt and the healing your receive. Since most Tanks have some heals, using these Sets in conjunction with their own heals may allow them to tank some Dungeons without a Healer.

leeching_plate_and_swarm_mother_eso
Pull em in and then AoE them while you heal yourself. Sounds like a good combination.

Notes For PvP Players

This Set can work for either Stamina or Magicka Builds because of the bonuses, but if you’re a Stamina build you will need to find some Medium or Heavy pieces to make it worthwhile. You don’t want to be using Arcane Jewelry if you’re a Stamina player and you definitely don’t want to be using Light Armor. You can try to purchase these off of players or Guild Traders or you can run Daily Heists in Hew’s Bane.

Neither the damage, nor the heal, nor the Movement Speed Reduction are AMAZING, however, when you add them all together the Set has some versatility. For example, fighting against a large group is sure to snag several people, slowing them and healing you so that you can keep on attacking. The benefit of this Set is that it allows you to keep the pressure up on your opponent by constantly snaring/damaging them and healing you at the same time. On my Templar I can: hit players with Vampire’s Bane, then Toppling Charge, and then just Puncturing Sweep on them and never let up because not only are they perma-snared, they are taking damage from Bahraha’s Curse, my DoT, Puncturing Sweep all the while I’m being healed. There is no reason for me to ever switch to my back bar unless I’m being attacked by someone else.

Final Tips

When using this Set try not to worry about how much damage it deals and don’t try to maximize it with Champion Points, because you might gimp your character overall in doing so. Instead put your points where they normally would go and you will be more effective when using this Set.

The biggest downside to Bahraha’s Curse is that the AoE area isn’t that large. This means that although you will have nearly 100% up time, you won’t get 100% of the benefit all of the time. Try to position your character in a way that it can get the most form the Curse itself. Grouping up lots of enemies on it if you’re in a dungeon, or players if you’re out in Cyrodiil can be difficult, but can ultimately make this set more effective than some others.

Since you cannot control where this Set procs if you are damaging more than one target, be sure not to hit things away from the group of enemies/players so that you don’t accidentally proc this on the one guy near absolutely no one. Also, consider waiting a second when you first pull a group of enemies/players and wait for the moment they are grouped before unloading to maximize effectiveness. This ability is great when defending Keeps because it can slow tons of people under Oil. Mix in Fire Rune and you’ve got yourself a great Keep defensive setup.

 

Stay tuned next week for our Build Guide around another ESO Set, and one you might not use too frequently!


 

Be sure to check out our other ESO Guides!

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