PvE'er in Cyrodiil?

Rainwhisper

So I am a quest/exploration player. I actually read and enjoy all the dialogue, and play for the story. I also enjoy racking up quest and exploration achievements. Having gotten Dominion and Pact Hero I'm now working my way through all of the Covenant quests.

I have absolutely zero interest in PvP. None. I've hated it since Ultima Online, and have avoided it like the plague in every MMO I've played since. I haven't even unlocked the Assault skill line on my Champ 228, main character.

SO...here's my question. For some reason Tamriel Hero (which seems like it should be a PvE achievement) requires doing all of the quests in Cyrodiil. That tells me there is a storyline as well as PvE quests in Cyrodiil.

Is it possible for me to do that content and ignore the PvP? I don't care if I get killed periodically. I've got the gold for the repair bills. I just want to know if I can do the quests. Has anyone written a guide to that effect? Should I start working on it now while I'm also doing the Pact quests, or will I be able to knock it out sequentially like I would any other faction?

Qbiken

You can do the quests. But be prepared to go full stealthmode if you want to avoid PvP fights.

Lariana

Oh, I know the feeling. When I was doing those quests in Cyrodiil, I didn't know how to PvP at all, and would just run off in the opposite direction if I saw even a single player of a different alliance.

But there are some easy ways you can complete them:

1. Pick an empty campaign. Avoid the campaigns that are full, that's where people are just waiting to gank unsuspecting players.
2. Try to find a campaign in which your alliance owns as many keeps as possible, or at least in the areas that you want to complete the quests.
3. If you see players from other alliances, run away as far as possible

Be warned, you still might get ganked a few times, but you should be able to get them done

imredneckson

Rainwhisper wrote: »

So I am a quest/exploration player. I actually read and enjoy all the dialogue, and play for the story. I also enjoy racking up quest and exploration achievements. Having gotten Dominion and Pact Hero I'm now working my way through all of the Covenant quests.

I have absolutely zero interest in PvP. None. I've hated it since Ultima Online, and have avoided it like the plague in every MMO I've played since. I haven't even unlocked the Assault skill line on my Champ 228, main character.

SO...here's my question. For some reason Tamriel Hero (which seems like it should be a PvE achievement) requires doing all of the quests in Cyrodiil. That tells me there is a storyline as well as PvE quests in Cyrodiil.

Is it possible for me to do that content and ignore the PvP? I don't care if I get killed periodically. I've got the gold for the repair bills. I just want to know if I can do the quests. Has anyone written a guide to that effect? Should I start working on it now while I'm also doing the Pact quests, or will I be able to knock it out sequentially like I would any other faction?

New gear ( wear impen on most if not all ), carry invisibility pots, try to keep stealthed you most of the time and, ALWAYS be ready to fight another player. Check out a few sites and videos to see what bar setup works best for both PvP and PvE. Other than that you can try to avoid fighting in Cyrodiil but it's only a matter of time before you get attacked.

PS dying to a player doesn't cause your armor to decay/get damaged which im very happy about since if it did cost money to repair my gear I would be broke xD

Enodoc

Just since I think it's worth mentioning, there's no real storyline to the Cyrodiil quests. Sure each of them has a threadbare "plot", but they have nothing like the story writing that the PvE zone quests have.

There's a list of all the Cyrodiil PvE quests at UESP: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Cyrodiil#Quests
The Settlement quests are the ones that count towards the achievement, the Wilderness quests do not.

FriedEggSandwich

Some good answers already. Unfortunately the recent addition of capture-able towns will mean stealthing around won't be as easy as it used to be, assuming npcs on town flags have the same detection radius as npcs on resource flags. Stealthing about is still your best option though. One more thing you could do is find or make a friend in game who is good at pvp then persuade them to accompany you.

Minalan

Try playing on Azura's, the population is generally lower and you can do most of the content unmolested.

If you are attacked, you can at least respond. There aren't any one shot kills or unkillable tank builds.

Also: bring a couple of friends. People I know who hate PVP will go if there's a big guild of allies running. Solo gankers will shy away from a group of a dozen.

Rainwhisper

Thanks all for the good advice. I'm dreading it, but I will give it a shot.

I don't care how many times I get killed, as long as I can knock out the quests.

Reverb

Rainwhisper wrote: »

Thanks all for the good advice. I'm dreading it, but I will give it a shot.

I don't care how many times I get killed, as long as I can knock out the quests.

Be aware that when you get killed by another player, you cannot resurrect in place. You have to rez at the closest keep or town owned by your alliance and ride back to your questing spot or delve. It's probably not a deal breaker, but I didn't want you to be caught off guard by that.

yodased

@rainwhisper if you are AD NA, hit me up. I will run you through the quests and kill/attempt to kill anyone who has issues with that.

Minalan

yodased wrote: »

@rainwhisper if you are AD NA, hit me up. I will run you through the quests and kill/attempt to kill anyone who has issues with that.

Same here if you're DC. ^^

Rainwhisper

Thanks guys! I am AD on PC-NA. @yodased , please feel free to send me a friend request and we'll meet up and run the content. That's a very generous offer!

@Minalan - Please send me a request too, and someday we can pal around One Tamriel together .

yodased

I'm online in cyrodiil right now let's do this

Chrlynsch

I offer the same for any EP characters, my fee is not too steep.

yodased

This actually turned into a really nice friendship. We have been questing in cyrodiil and he has already gotten 2/3 of what is needed.

Sometimes you forget how big and beautiful Cyrodiil is when you are in that tunnel vison of alessia - sej or roe-nikel

Thanks @rainwhisper I'm really enjoying this

Daveheart

@yodased don't forget to hit each of the delves while you're in there, and you might as well get most of the skyshards.

Asardes

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Some good answers already. Unfortunately the recent addition of capture-able towns will mean stealthing around won't be as easy as it used to be, assuming npcs on town flags have the same detection radius as npcs on resource flags. Stealthing about is still your best option though. One more thing you could do is find or make a friend in game who is good at pvp then persuade them to accompany you.

I went to Bruma - EU PC, Spell Breaker - and saw the EP flag guards endlessly fighting the town guards right by the dark anchor and doing 0 damage to each other. That campaign is always empty and totally EP dominated

yodased

Daveheart wrote: »

@yodased don't forget to hit each of the delves while you're in there, and you might as well get most of the skyshards.

yeah we are doing lorebooks, dolmens, delves and quests. It's a tour of cyrodiil!

Asardes

Daveheart wrote: »

@yodased don't forget to hit each of the delves while you're in there, and you might as well get most of the skyshards.

Most sky shards are in the open or in delves, but there are 4 that are locked behind each of the enemy alliance gates, near the scroll temples. You can get those only when those gates are opened, the condition being that both the forward keep and the one adjacent to the gate is held by an opposing alliance. There's a message that pops up on screen "Gate of XXXXX is open" and the icon on map changes accordingly. When you see that check if you've already gotten the shard behind that gate and if you haven't just sprint inside - even though the gate is open it's still guarded by enemy NPCs that hit pretty hard and respawn quickly, so the best way is to just run past them on your horse. Once inside sneak to the shard as there may be enemy players about. Of course, some will just lurk there and gank you for some easy AP put that's the fun

yodased

Thanks for the advice @asardes but I've been pvping for a long time

I'm the guy giving the tour

vamp_emily

I think the most important thing to do if you are a PvE just wanting to do quests. Learn how to travel within Cyro to get your quests done faster. I've done many quests and dungeons and very seldom got ganked or attacked.

However, I really do feel sorry for the AD fisherman I see all the time in IC. Poor guy, most the time I see him he is laying there dead.

Asardes

There is however one quest in Cropsford that will most likely send you to your doom if you are not prepared to fight tomatoes & smurfs. Something about recovering a bag of seeds from a well known grind location

Reverb

Asardes wrote: »

There is however one quest in Cropsford that will most likely send you to your doom if you are not prepared to fight tomatoes & smurfs. Something about recovering a bag of seeds from a well known grind location

Yeah but they're all crackbabies, most aren't actually any good at PVP

Asardes

I was doing the grind repeatable settlement quests for easy AP/XP while I hadn't unlocked Vigor yet and got some even easier AP there even though my DD skills were not honed yet and green dragon blood was my only heal. Before vigor I was so weak that my most reliable source of AP was repairing walls at my own expense

Dasovaruilos

This weekend I just played PVE in Cyrodiil to get the open skyshards and do the quests. I went to Childrend, I think, where the pop in Xbox is almost always empty and just ran the other way around the combat marks.

In almost 20 hours, I got killed just twice. And my build is an unchanged dungeon healer, with no DPS, so almost every player will kill me if the see me.

The funny thing is, a lot of times I ran into other players in cities and dungeons and we just went by each other.

I think there are a lot of player also that just want to do PVE there, so they don't initiate the attack. If you don't also, you have a chance do just go on.

But, just accept that you will be killed and maybe will have to go a long way to finish some quest, specially with there is a fight happeing nearby.

In my experience, though, you will die from other players a lot less than you might think. Cyrodill is VERY big and with low pop, most players will be at keeps and resources.

Asardes

hugocbp wrote: »

This weekend I just played PVE in Cyrodiil to get the open skyshards and do the quests. I went to Childrend, I think, where the pop in Xbox is almost always empty and just ran the other way around the combat marks. In almost 20 hours, I got killed just twice. And my build is an unchanged dungeon healer, with no DPS, so almost every player will kill me if the see me.

How can a dungeon healer have no DPS? As magicka builds they should have DPS like any magicka DD. Just the skill selection is different. What's your build?

Dasovaruilos

Asardes wrote: »

hugocbp wrote: »

This weekend I just played PVE in Cyrodiil to get the open skyshards and do the quests. I went to Childrend, I think, where the pop in Xbox is almost always empty and just ran the other way around the combat marks. In almost 20 hours, I got killed just twice. And my build is an unchanged dungeon healer, with no DPS, so almost every player will kill me if the see me.

How can a dungeon healer have no DPS? As magicka builds they should have DPS like any magicka DD. Just the skill selection is different. What's your build?

I mean no DPS to fight a PvP DPS build. I have DPS to solo and group content as far as a healer goes.

As I stated, my build is a Dungeon Healer, so my main concern is buff group, then support, then heal, then DPS if everything is under control.

For example: I have a Dual Wield bar with Pucturing Sweeps, Shards, Radiant Oppresion to do damage. But I found that is not even close to enough to fight a PvPer without change.

The important thing here is that I was PVEingin Cyrodiil to get the skyshards for my build, so I didn't want to change anything because I planned to stay there just a little while and go back to dungeons and trials. It was never my intention to make this build PvP viable.

That said, I'm still looking for a good PvP build that I can adapt from this Dungeon / Trials Healer build without too much hassle. Maybe just a set change, Chapions redistribution and new skills.

I really wanted a dedicated PvP build, but I just don't have enought time as it is to level up this healer to CP531, so I just do what I can.

Asardes

You can get more than enough books and skill points for any build in the other alliance Cadwell silver and gold areas, without the threat of being attacked by other players. In the past you had to finish the main quest to access them but now they are accessible once you hit level 50. In One Tamriel they will be accessible right away. I've recently run two magicka builds trough home alliance zone, Coldharbour, fighters and mages guid and main quest and then silver and the first gold zone and got enough skill points to spec:
- all racial passives (9 skill points)
- all class skills/morphs and all passives (3 x 20 = 60 skill points)
- all destruction and restoration staff skills/morphs and passives (2 x 20 = 40 skill points)
- all light armor skills/morphs and passives (13 skill points)
- all mages guild skills/morphs and passives (17 skill points)
- rearming trap morph (for minor force) and banish the wicked 3/3 (for ultimate gain) from fighters guild line (5 skill points)
- twin blade and blunt passive from 2W line (for extra damage from swords) (2 skill points)
- penultimate tier in all 6 crafting lines (it's actually more profitable to keep the gear crafting writs at that level), and 3/3 medicinal use in alchemy ( 4 x 8 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 45 skill points)
Total = 188 skill points

That's actually an exhaustive build for any magicka class that can both PvE and PvP.

There are 9 and 1/3 skill points in each alliance area and Coldharbour: 3 from quests, 1 from the public dungeon event and 5 and 1/3 from the 16 sky shards. There are 2 skill points in the last quest from mages guild. There are 11 in the main quest. Fighters/mages guild quests lines take about 3 hours each, the main quest takes 4 hours (I left those alone until level 50 for maximum XP & CP gain). And I haven't even done the non-DLC normal dungeons that give 16 skill points and the veteran ones that give 8 points for quest completion - total 24 points. Craglorn has another 18 sky shards that make another 6 points. So without owning any DLC and setting foot in Cyrodiil you get
64 + 16 x 9.33 + 24 + 6 + 11 + 2 = 256.33 skill points.

So a difference of 68.33 skill points. Once you earn them you can invest them to unlock
- 3/5 undaunted skills/morphs that are magicka based and the passives (10 skill points)
- the extra points that allow you to gain maximum crafting proficiency (4 + 2 = 6 skill points)
- 4 x 3 research passives for all crafting , 3 x 5 hireling passive for all crafts, 3 recipe improvement, 3 aspect improvement, 3 x 3 temper improvement, 3 x 3 ore extraction, 3 x chemistry, 1 x laboratory use, 3 x chef, 3 x brewer (58 skill points)
- in case you also use a piece of medium and a piece of heavy armor it's worth taking 2 x wind walker for medium and 3 x resolve, 2 x constitution and 2 x juggernaut (9 skill points)
- if you want to go 5-7 heavy you will also need the active skill and 2 x wrath and 2 x rapid mending (6 skill points)
Total = 89 skill points if you want to have all possible flexibility, squeeze every little bit of your gear and be a total master crafter. Once you finish research (or you don't want to do any) in a little more than a year, you will recoup 12 points so in the long run so you only need 77 skill points.

By comparison Cyrodiil contains only a few books (some of which are exclusive) that gain you maybe 1-2 ranks in mages guild depending on how many you actually collected - very few extra from what you actually collected in your alliance zones. And comparable to what you would gain from the lore collection in one of the gold or silver zones. It also contains 46 sky shards of which 4 are locked behind enemy alliance base gates - unless your alliance totally dominates and they are unlocked. 42 or 46 sky shards = 14 or 15 skill points are available at any time, comparable to 1.5 alliance zones. You are probably better of exploring some of those actually, as Cyrodiil has no comprehensive fast travel system unless your alliance has most of your keeps and you can use the transitus system.

The conclusion is that unless you want to be a master crafter and a skill line completionist, and actually gain the alliance war skills, there's no need to go in Cyrodiil or even buy any of the DLCs.

Dasovaruilos

You are right.

I am not saying it is optimal. I just wanted to explore Cyrodiil. I really like the vastness there and it is more a completionist thing than mix/maxing.

I'm in the middle of Silver now, but since I've played that before, I just find it a little boring. Since it is always empty and always a lot of levels behind me, I'm waiting for the One Tamriel update so I can get more XP doing Silver and Gold.

But for the most optimal experience, yes, it is better to just avoid Cyrodiil until after you've completed all the solo quests, skyshards and books.

And also, this character is supposed to be my main Crafter, so I would do this in the future anyway. I do have almost all points in all crafting lines (missing the last one in Enchanting and a few in Alchemy).

sentientomega

On the weekend, I went to Cyrodiil, the standard campaign, Laatvulon, and spent all day getting the Cyrodiil Champion component to Tamriel Expert Adventurer. I did that once before with a DC stamblade on EU a couple of years ago, and I had planned to do it on one other that I'd thought up. This most recent character I did this on is AD (big minus in Cyro/IC), and mag-specced (and even bigger minus for stealthy manouevring), and, is also a lowbie (again, another big minus), since the level was 10 when first entering Cyrodiil, and level 21 by the time all 50 required quests had been completed. I was exhausted, but it wasn't the grind so much as it was the ever-present fear of being jumped at even the non-AvA towns. Not fun for me...

As things are now, I think I'd do the tute on new chars, and that's it, stay out of both zones.

Incidentally, I was only ever jumped at EP-controlled Cropsford, a few times, and once outside Bruma. I went Vlasterus (AD-controlled for the entire time I was there), Cropsford, Bruma, Chorrol/Weynon Priory, and then Cheydinhal.

Just imagine if the Defensive mode systems from Black Desert Online and Red Dead Online inspired the creation of a similar system for Cyrodiil and Imperial City...

Minyassa

sentientomega wrote: »

On the weekend, I went to Cyrodiil, the standard campaign, Laatvulon, and spent all day getting the Cyrodiil Champion component to Tamriel Expert Adventurer. I did that once before with a DC stamblade on EU a couple of years ago, and I had planned to do it on one other that I'd thought up. This most recent character I did this on is AD (big minus in Cyro/IC), and mag-specced (and even bigger minus for stealthy manouevring), and, is also a lowbie (again, another big minus), since the level was 10 when first entering Cyrodiil, and level 21 by the time all 50 required quests had been completed. I was exhausted, but it wasn't the grind so much as it was the ever-present fear of being jumped at even the non-AvA towns. Not fun for me...

As things are now, I think I'd do the tute on new chars, and that's it, stay out of both zones.

Incidentally, I was only ever jumped at EP-controlled Cropsford, a few times, and once outside Bruma. I went Vlasterus (AD-controlled for the entire time I was there), Cropsford, Bruma, Chorrol/Weynon Priory, and then Cheydinhal.

Just imagine if the Defensive mode systems from Black Desert Online and Red Dead Online inspired the creation of a similar system for Cyrodiil and Imperial City...

If you take a higher level, better geared toon in, you get the quests done much more quickly which reduces the amount of time you're exposed to danger of being jumped. I did some with my main and they went very easily, but then switched to a lowbie with better stealth and it took waaaaaaaaaaay longer, I was questing for about three days.