Bushido2513 wrote: »

Tornaad wrote: »

I am still a beginner when it comes to PVP, but there are a few things I have learned that I wanted to share, because I realized that a lot of people coming into or thinking about coming into PVP might benefit from some of them.

There is a huge difference between PVP and PVE. Even the builds are different. As a beginner, I have found that prioritizing health is the most important thing simply because it lets me stay in the game a little longer. One of the things I have quickly come to love about PVP is how chaotic and unpredictable it can be. At one point, if you would have asked me if I wanted to participate in PVP, I would have looked at you like you had horns growing out of your head. While I am still a beginner, I have found PVP is very much enjoyable and worth getting involved in.

On Death

One big difference between PVE and PVP that was a game changer for me, is learning that death is meaningless. If you die in PVP from a PVP source, your armor does not degrade, and you do not have to spend a soul gem to resurrect. After I realized that, I started looking at death as a free teleport back to base.

Choosing a PVP Activity

Cyrodiil is going to be the best place to get started. In most cases the PVE gear is not optimized for PVP gameplay, and Cyrodiil has the best sources of ways to collect PVP gear. Battle Grounds is a great place to go to learn the intricacies of combat but it takes a while to collect proper gear. The Imperial City is full of people who love to gank and considering (as near as I have been able to discover) you need to purchase all of the gear with the Tel var that you lose half of when you die, it is best left until you can either find a empty server or until you have a bit more experience under your belt.

Finding Places to Farm Gear

Cyrodiil has delves and dolmens … a lot of them. By default the map filters seem to be set to not show the delves and dolmens but with a bit of work you can turn them on and start collecting gear from them.

Delves work a little differently in Cyrodiil. The bosses do not seem to spawn off time like bosses in other delves, they seem to spawn off of clearing out the rest of the minions specifically twice. The respawn time for the minions in delves is incredibly fast so it is not as bad as you might think. For Example, if you have a delve that is a square and has two bosses in it (multiple bosses are common in Cyrodiil) then you might have to make one run through the delve completely clearing out all of the minions and then on your second run through the delve you will likely start finding bosses, which will drop gear. And because of the respawn time, you won't have to stop and wait for anything to respawn, you can just continuously run through the dungeon. I have not completely figured out what gear drops from where, but I think it is connected to the nearby towns (I’ll get into that more later).

Dolmens in Cyrodiil are a little annoying right now. There are about 10 dolmens spread throughout Cyrodiil, and of those 10 only one is active at any time. And with the seemingly random nature of how they trigger, that means that if you are going to be farming dolmens in Cyrodiil you need to be prepared to do a lot of running. So optimize for both speed and riding stamina if you are planning on farming dolmens. One trick I have found to get them done a little faster once you get to them, is that killing one bigger monster near the pinion for the dolmen will often activate it, letting you quickly get to the end boss of the dolmen.

Questing for Gear

There are three capturable towns in Cyrodiil that are your some of your best friends when it comes to collecting gear. Each of the towns has two repeatable quest givers marked with the normal daily repeatable quest marker. You do not need to capture the town to do quests there. You can just take out any nearby guards (which can be killed in Cyrodiil) and then just do the quest. These quests, (once you get to the town at least) do not involve too much running across the map and can generally be done rather quickly. If the town is not captured by your alliance, and you can easily take out the guards, then I recommend against trying to capture any of the 3 flags that let the town be captured as that alerts people that someone is there and will leave you needing to respawn back at the nearest keep, which if you are deep within enemy territory, can mean a lot of running.

The Bounty Hunter skill in the Fighter’s guild also gives you another source of repeatable quests you can use to collect gear. You often have to do a significant amount of running to get there, but it will still be a source of repeatable quests that give you gear in return.

Getting Involved

I am still trying to figure out the combat side of things in PVP, so I cannot give too many tips on that, but I do have a few. First, if you look at the map it will tell you where combats are currently going on along with which factions are participating. You can find this by looking for colored x’s on the map. The color of the / and \ will tell you the color of the factions involved. In a three-sided war you will also see a | on that as well.

As resurrecting is free in PVP, resurrecting another player is also free. Accordingly, even if you just run into a group of complete strangers and join in the battle and then die, there will be people who will just resurrect you the moment they get a chance. While there are occasionally groups that you can join, you do not have to wait to actually find one to get involved, you can just look for an X that has your faction’s color in it, and then jump in.

Joining a PVP guild is going to be a big thing. When you do, you will want to find one that is active during the time you tend to play. This might mean going with a smaller guild than a bigger one, but that is just fine.

Combat Tips

The only thing I can share here is don’t be afraid to suck and prioritize survivability over being effective. Right now, I just took my PVE heavy attack Sorcerer build and moved all the points from magica to health and that has helped me a lot. I still die, a lot, but I find myself surviving a lot longer and am learning a lot in the process.

My Routine

First, I made sure that the delves and dolmens (and everything else) were all visible on my map. Now that I have discovered the trick behind the three towns, my routine is to do all of the repeatable quests that I can from each of the quest givers in each of the three towns. If it is already taken by my faction, then I just run in and out all while I avoid capturing the flag they are near. If it is not, I quickly take out the guards that are near the quest giver, grab my quest and run out. Then I do not attract the attention of the controlling faction. From there, if I still have time, I will do the bounty hunter quests offered by the Fighter’s Guild skill. Anytime I am near a dolmen that is active, I will run to grab it and finish it as quickly as possible and then move on. One of my favorite PVP quests to do is scouting missions. I will go scout a keep or its resource, then start capturing resources until I get killed, and use that as a free teleport back to base to turn in my quest and start all over. And because my quest was to just scout the keep or its resource, it does not matter if I capture anything, because I just needed to scout the resource.

Do you have any tips that you wish you knew as an absolute beginner in PVP?

I think it's good to share fresh perspectives. That being said I would say you might want to check out some of the beginning tips on YouTube. There have been about three I've seen in the last month it or so that look helpful.

Also regarding gear it just depends on your goals and playstyle. There are multiple crafted combinations and some great options in guild stores.

Basically wretched vitality and rallying cry fits almost everyone. Daedric Trickery and wretched or rallying is also easy to craft or buy.

Farming telvar is an interesting choice because you can use it to buy hakeijos to sell or apothecary packs to sell or use. Both can be bought at the vendors in the starting area of imperial City, the base area.

The rest I think just comes from practice, watching YouTube vids, and asking questions.

Tornaad wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Tornaad wrote: »

I am still a beginner when it comes to PVP, but there are a few things I have learned that I wanted to share, because I realized that a lot of people coming into or thinking about coming into PVP might benefit from some of them.

There is a huge difference between PVP and PVE. Even the builds are different. As a beginner, I have found that prioritizing health is the most important thing simply because it lets me stay in the game a little longer. One of the things I have quickly come to love about PVP is how chaotic and unpredictable it can be. At one point, if you would have asked me if I wanted to participate in PVP, I would have looked at you like you had horns growing out of your head. While I am still a beginner, I have found PVP is very much enjoyable and worth getting involved in.

On Death

One big difference between PVE and PVP that was a game changer for me, is learning that death is meaningless. If you die in PVP from a PVP source, your armor does not degrade, and you do not have to spend a soul gem to resurrect. After I realized that, I started looking at death as a free teleport back to base.

Choosing a PVP Activity

Cyrodiil is going to be the best place to get started. In most cases the PVE gear is not optimized for PVP gameplay, and Cyrodiil has the best sources of ways to collect PVP gear. Battle Grounds is a great place to go to learn the intricacies of combat but it takes a while to collect proper gear. The Imperial City is full of people who love to gank and considering (as near as I have been able to discover) you need to purchase all of the gear with the Tel var that you lose half of when you die, it is best left until you can either find a empty server or until you have a bit more experience under your belt.

Finding Places to Farm Gear

Cyrodiil has delves and dolmens … a lot of them. By default the map filters seem to be set to not show the delves and dolmens but with a bit of work you can turn them on and start collecting gear from them.

Delves work a little differently in Cyrodiil. The bosses do not seem to spawn off time like bosses in other delves, they seem to spawn off of clearing out the rest of the minions specifically twice. The respawn time for the minions in delves is incredibly fast so it is not as bad as you might think. For Example, if you have a delve that is a square and has two bosses in it (multiple bosses are common in Cyrodiil) then you might have to make one run through the delve completely clearing out all of the minions and then on your second run through the delve you will likely start finding bosses, which will drop gear. And because of the respawn time, you won't have to stop and wait for anything to respawn, you can just continuously run through the dungeon. I have not completely figured out what gear drops from where, but I think it is connected to the nearby towns (I’ll get into that more later).

Dolmens in Cyrodiil are a little annoying right now. There are about 10 dolmens spread throughout Cyrodiil, and of those 10 only one is active at any time. And with the seemingly random nature of how they trigger, that means that if you are going to be farming dolmens in Cyrodiil you need to be prepared to do a lot of running. So optimize for both speed and riding stamina if you are planning on farming dolmens. One trick I have found to get them done a little faster once you get to them, is that killing one bigger monster near the pinion for the dolmen will often activate it, letting you quickly get to the end boss of the dolmen.

Questing for Gear

There are three capturable towns in Cyrodiil that are your some of your best friends when it comes to collecting gear. Each of the towns has two repeatable quest givers marked with the normal daily repeatable quest marker. You do not need to capture the town to do quests there. You can just take out any nearby guards (which can be killed in Cyrodiil) and then just do the quest. These quests, (once you get to the town at least) do not involve too much running across the map and can generally be done rather quickly. If the town is not captured by your alliance, and you can easily take out the guards, then I recommend against trying to capture any of the 3 flags that let the town be captured as that alerts people that someone is there and will leave you needing to respawn back at the nearest keep, which if you are deep within enemy territory, can mean a lot of running.

The Bounty Hunter skill in the Fighter’s guild also gives you another source of repeatable quests you can use to collect gear. You often have to do a significant amount of running to get there, but it will still be a source of repeatable quests that give you gear in return.

Getting Involved

I am still trying to figure out the combat side of things in PVP, so I cannot give too many tips on that, but I do have a few. First, if you look at the map it will tell you where combats are currently going on along with which factions are participating. You can find this by looking for colored x’s on the map. The color of the / and \ will tell you the color of the factions involved. In a three-sided war you will also see a | on that as well.

As resurrecting is free in PVP, resurrecting another player is also free. Accordingly, even if you just run into a group of complete strangers and join in the battle and then die, there will be people who will just resurrect you the moment they get a chance. While there are occasionally groups that you can join, you do not have to wait to actually find one to get involved, you can just look for an X that has your faction’s color in it, and then jump in.

Joining a PVP guild is going to be a big thing. When you do, you will want to find one that is active during the time you tend to play. This might mean going with a smaller guild than a bigger one, but that is just fine.

Combat Tips

The only thing I can share here is don’t be afraid to suck and prioritize survivability over being effective. Right now, I just took my PVE heavy attack Sorcerer build and moved all the points from magica to health and that has helped me a lot. I still die, a lot, but I find myself surviving a lot longer and am learning a lot in the process.

My Routine

First, I made sure that the delves and dolmens (and everything else) were all visible on my map. Now that I have discovered the trick behind the three towns, my routine is to do all of the repeatable quests that I can from each of the quest givers in each of the three towns. If it is already taken by my faction, then I just run in and out all while I avoid capturing the flag they are near. If it is not, I quickly take out the guards that are near the quest giver, grab my quest and run out. Then I do not attract the attention of the controlling faction. From there, if I still have time, I will do the bounty hunter quests offered by the Fighter’s Guild skill. Anytime I am near a dolmen that is active, I will run to grab it and finish it as quickly as possible and then move on. One of my favorite PVP quests to do is scouting missions. I will go scout a keep or its resource, then start capturing resources until I get killed, and use that as a free teleport back to base to turn in my quest and start all over. And because my quest was to just scout the keep or its resource, it does not matter if I capture anything, because I just needed to scout the resource.

Do you have any tips that you wish you knew as an absolute beginner in PVP?

I think it's good to share fresh perspectives. That being said I would say you might want to check out some of the beginning tips on YouTube. There have been about three I've seen in the last month it or so that look helpful.

Also regarding gear it just depends on your goals and playstyle. There are multiple crafted combinations and some great options in guild stores.

Basically wretched vitality and rallying cry fits almost everyone. Daedric Trickery and wretched or rallying is also easy to craft or buy.

Farming telvar is an interesting choice because you can use it to buy hakeijos to sell or apothecary packs to sell or use. Both can be bought at the vendors in the starting area of imperial City, the base area.

The rest I think just comes from practice, watching YouTube vids, and asking questions.

For me, one of the most intimidating things about getting into pvp was getting the gear to make a build and I know I am not alone in that feeling. Yes, I realize that in many cases I can just purchase gear from the guild store, but if that build doesn't work for me then that can get rather expensive. Additionally I like having options and so knowing how to farm the gear gives me a way to get options.

https://youtu.be/1WZXAo4Vogw?si=CkAnf1LLdFNHt_nN

Mayrael wrote: »

Great guide. Many experienced PvP players create guides, but their perspective usually differs from the perspective of players for whom PvP is completely new. You point out many things that are obvious to "veterans" and they don't even mention them, but they can be significant for someone new.

A very good piece of advice for every new player is to start with builds more geared towards tanking than DPS, and there are several reasons for this:

1. As you mentioned, staying in battle longer provides more experience and allows for a less stressful introduction to PvP. Over time, as skills and knowledge increase, we can rely more on active defensive methods, but initially, it's worth investing in passive defense.
2. In Cyrodiil, most tactical objectives are obtained either through capturing flags (which does not require a great deal of firepower but rather the ability to stay in one place without fear of death - flags, battering rams, etc.) or through the use of siege weapons - which leads to the conclusion that someone who is a tank may even more effectively accomplish Cyrodiil's tactical objectives than a typical DPS.

I have just one note. Reviving fallen comrades is not free; it consumes 1 soul gem. However, it's one of the key elements of PvP, and even if we aren't very experienced PvP players, it's worth remembering this one lesson - always revive your allies - you never know if that one revived player might tip the scales in your favor.

taugrim wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Get the one bar ring so you don't need to maintain buffs while in combat. Two bars give higher survivability, dots and utilities but I can't even keep one vigor up.

One bar builds simplify the game a lot, but I do think they'll put an artificial ceiling on a player's skills. It takes time and practice to get used to weapon swapping, but you have far more utility and flexibility in terms of skills, AND you can backbar or frontbar sets, which you can't do with Oakensoul.

moo_2021 wrote: »

taugrim wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Get the one bar ring so you don't need to maintain buffs while in combat. Two bars give higher survivability, dots and utilities but I can't even keep one vigor up.

One bar builds simplify the game a lot, but I do think they'll put an artificial ceiling on a player's skills. It takes time and practice to get used to weapon swapping, but you have far more utility and flexibility in terms of skills, AND you can backbar or frontbar sets, which you can't do with Oakensoul.

It's not swapping but freeing from having to buff oneself, so the focus becomes just killing and surviving, at the cost of having only one bar.

As a result my sustain set is always coward's, since other sources of major expedition are not affordable.

Tornaad wrote: »

I have personally seen the benefits of a one bar build. I got my first no death run on veteran Maelstrom Arena thanks to my one bar sorcerer build.
I can also see how it can put a cap on your progress as I have yet to get to the end of arc 4 on the infinite archives.