Build question

I’ve been playing for a couple years as a solo player and have finished nearly everything soloable. I don’t really have to care about builds to much and have been running julianos and order’s wraith sets with an oakensoul ring and a slimecraw helmet on my Magblade. I’m sure it’s not great comparatively but for overland stuff it’s fine. I wanted to start getting into more serious play and looked up some more serious builds. I’m stuck. How the hell to I get any of the recommended sets? All the best sets seem to only drop from vet dungeons (which I don’t have the sets to run). I have collected a lot of what I need for lesser sets like Seargents Mail. But I don’t have the pieces themselves and it looks like I need a couple hundred transmute crystals. Is the only way to get those pieces to get transmutes? i don’t run cyrodill or PvP campaigns which seem to be the only way to get them. I have plenty of gold but none of these pieces are for sale. How to I start getting better sets? Specifically I’d like to get a decent build for The Archives and to start dabbling as a dps in trials.