My first long PvP weekend

OldGamerESO

In the past I have dabbled in PvP in order to run the first quests and get some shards, but never more than an hour or two. This weekend I put in some serious time into PvP because I wanted all the skills for the Nord tank I was leveling. I wasn't interested going in to kill people, but just to rack up some AP and level the skills. So I took my level 40 Nord stam DK, built a heavy armor blue impen Seducer 5 piece set with + Magicka enchants, ran health + magicka regen food + a purple resto staff and queued up in the max level, full CP campaign.

I played roughly 16 hours from Friday night through Sunday. I went in having read this forum for months about how much PvP sucks, cancer builds, insta gank mechanics, etc. I guess I expected something different from what I experienced. Also I admit that 16 hours is probably not near enough time to make important judgements.

I have just under 500 cp. My Nord has all its stats in stamina, the CP in all the usual places for a tank (plus some perhaps unusually high amounts in health regen. I am missing so many of my passives because I have not farmed enough shards. I only have half my HA passives and non of my Nord passives yet. basically this character sucks right now, and for PvP he really sucks.

So when I entered Cyradil (as a DC) and checked the map and it was not difficult to tell where fights where happening. I would move to closest keep, grab some wall/door repair kits, exit and ride my horse to where the action was (offensive or defensive). This weekend EP and AD were doubling up on DC so there were a lot of one-sided crushes, but there seemed to be constant action. So basically I would find a battle, usually around a resource node or a keep and heal. I would also attack players with resto staff if they were being concentrated on. I got a large number of kills that way. I rezzed hundreds of players and watched how they died. I died many, many times, but only when concentrated on by many players.

So on to my observations:

• When riding to and from battles I would see people crouched down by the side of the road every 400 yards or so. They were DC but I assume they were "stealthed" to the enemy since they seemed pretty obvious to me. I assume these were DC gankers. Sometimes i would die and ride back to the same battle 10 times and they would still be there in the same spots.
• When riding from keep to battle on roads I would be regularly knocked off my horse and attacked by a night blade. I would change to werewolf and more than 50 percent of the time I could kill them. i am not sure how, I don't even have all my werewolf skills. I would just keep leaping, howling to heal and pounding on them with my claws. I had expected to get insta-ganked given what I read about on the forums. I had a lot of 1-1 fights over the course of the weekend. about 80 percent of the time I did very well against a bunch of players. My guess is they they sucked too. I fought mages with no shields, templars with no heals, nightblades with no health and apparently no stamina because they would only dodge roll 3 times. Point is that I never really witnessed anyone overpowered or one hit ganks on 1-1.
• Next observation is that so many people die to oil or catapults or AOE of all types when fighting around keeps. Me and the other healers would heal everyone and boom there would be 10 dead in front of the keep door. In general they seemed to be medium, most with low health. Even in front of the the keep outside main walls in the wide open spaces players died left and right even though there were no enemy players on the field. We could have 60 people out front and the guys inside are shooting from walls and using their catapults with the big, slow red circle moving around and boom, 10 players dead. I never died from any of this even if I got hit it only took 20 percent off the top. I have no idea why they would die like flies. Little white X's on the ground where ever i would look. So I guess this doesn't line up with "everyone is wearing heavy armor" mantra I read about on here.
• I had an opportunity to see only one un-killable player this weekend. ... A templar vampire tank all in white armor. It was pretty amazing to fight her. I saw entire zergs beat on her and she seriously would get on a rock and take it all and laugh, then mist away and bam do it again. DC peeps were yelling in zone about how we needed to stop attacking her, she was unkillable and we were idiots for even trying. Of course I didn't see her killing anyone but I suppose it could have been happening. But all weekend that was the only obvious case of an "unkillable" player. Almost everyone else seemed to be specced for damage with low health and died all the time.
• Almost all the action that I saw took place as 1-1 on the road, in a pitched battle with 100 players around a keep, in smaller group around a resource (blacksmith, farm,lumber) or in a running battle between an enemy keep and ours as either we pushed to them or they to us. These group battles don't seem super organized, or maybe DC is just disorganized. I mean they were fun and all, but it still seemed more about numbers and ganging up on people until they died. Not a lot of "skill" or builds, or OP heavy armor or any of the things people complain constantly about on the forums here. I am not sure where people go to get 1-1 fights except the open road, and if you avoid roads the 1-1 seems to drop to zero. Those 1-1 fights start almost always with a stealthed opening attack.

So this weekend has me sort of second guessing a lot of what I read on the forums about how PvP is broken. I didn't receive any insta-proc kills. I was never ganked from 100 percent to dead and it wasn't because of my skills, build, CP or gear. I checked my recaps. I usually died from 10 people ganging up on me. I didn't really see many "tanky" HA builds evidenced by basically everyone dieing all the time, especially in boring AOE. And pretty much everyone would die (except Serra) if enough people pounded on them.

Maybe there is more to PvP than what I experienced. Maybe Imperial City is where there are fights where HA and proc sets become OP, but I really didn't see it.


[minor edit for naming]

Voxicity

OldGamerESO wrote: »

I didn't receive any insta-proc kills. I was never ganked from 100 percent to dead and it wasn't because of my skills, build, CP or gear.

Where on earth were you pvping? Sounds like heaven on nirn, I need to be there!!!!

tunepunk

I never did much PvP, just tried a few times. But I've been in low population campaigns lot's of times but only for the achievements. Last time I encountered someone in Cyro (about a year ago) I always died quite quickly, but yesterday I had my first duel against a fairly experienced PvP:er in my guild and prevailed. My current build is purely PVE dps, with a fair amount of survivability, so I'm thinking about trying PvP again, in a more populated campaign next time, since i really want to get hold of some of the Alliance war skills.

Sounds like you had fun though, so I'm probably gonna try again some time so.

Nermy

Very interesting insight. I'm a PvPer through and through and I never see a lot of what people write about in the forums. Sure you get unkillable temptanks and gankers but on the whole, Cyrodiil is a lot of fun. Glad you enjoyed it @OldGamerESO. Maybe we'll meet on the battlefield someday...

Biro123

As a tank, you probably wouldn't (and shouldn't) get instakilled from a gank.

To be honest, on my squishy magsorc with light armour and no impen - its very rare I get ganked successfully. In many cases it only takes a bit of an adjustment to your build to be able to cater for all but the best gankers.
(in my case, defensive rune, 25k health - and a ani-cancelled shield+dodge-roll as soon as the gank hits to avoid the follow hits after he breaks free from defensive rune - then its shielding, hitting back, then hunting him down with magelight)... ofc a 2-man gank = insta death - but what'dya expect with a squishy-sorc?

Still good to point out some of this. Most of what is mentioned in the forums (ie ganking t-baggers, unkillable tanks, toxic players etc.) does exist out there - but its nowhere near the scale that people seem to think.. especially when others start posting based on what they see other people say rather than what they see - then start talking as if its all like that and everybody is toxic...

Same goes for PVE.. After all the posts here about bad pugs, kicks from randoms etc... I expected it to be a nightmare.. until I queued for my first random - and all went ok - then popped WGT.. and had a great time with some really lovely people who were happy to take time to explain all the mechanics and keep re-trying after the wipes until we finished it...

I think the difference is that *Most* PVPers also PVE so know what they hear here isn't a true picture. But *Most* PVE'ers don't PVP - so assume what they hear here about PVP is how it is..

Takes-No-Prisoner

OP you have a good sense of awareness in PVP. It's really the one thing you need to have mentally equipped when you walk in there. 561cp or not, if you know what you are doing, you'll be able to hold your own just fine.

Sounds like you fit right in with the rest of us crazy folk.

DHale

Yeah I pvp a lot and don't think it's broken other than the lag it's fine I will get ganked by bad nb with viper validreth and incap that kills me but I come back with a detect pot out of stealth they usually suck.

Biro123

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

OP you have a good sense of awareness in PVP. It's really the one thing you need to have mentally equipped when you walk in there. 561cp or not, if you know what you are doing, you'll be able to hold your own just fine.

Sounds like you fit right in with the rest of us crazy folk.

That is key. Its easy to say that there isn't much skill involved - its all down to numbers... Well, that's true and it isn't. The skills you need are situational awareness - being able to fight while knowing whats going on around you, knowing when to push, and knowing when to back-off/escape etc.. Reading the 'Flow' of the battles. That doesn't mean you don't need any duelling skills - those have their place too.

J2JMC

DHale wrote: »

Yeah I pvp a lot and don't think it's broken other than the lag it's fine I will get ganked by bad nb with viper validreth and incap that kills me but I come back with a detect pot out of stealth they usually suck.

I mean a build designed to gank should suck in a 1v1 against a build designed to fight in the open...

The problem is people can design gank builds yet still have enough resources to 1v1...

Narvuntien

I have a lot of fun in PVP despite getting one shot all the time.

Since I discovered food I don't get 1 shot as as much and actually end up in something approximating a duel. (Which I lose either due to lag or most often because I suck or misclick)

I agree there is a hell of a lot more to PVP than the actual fighting, it really is a chess game going on.

I think a lot of it is down to, dammit whats the word, something bias, where you only remember the bad stuff because it made you feel something.

Getting ganked after riding for 10 minutes to attack or defend a keep really sucks. For me its when I am standing in a group of people and for some reason I am the one that gets picked out.

Perhaps the fact you have 500 Cp and I only have 260 plays a big part. CP makes a big difference here I think.

KingYogi415

How to have have fun playing ESO:

Step 1. Understand the forums are trash filled with trash people who mostly need to be ignored.

Cheers!

runagate

I'm all choked up, @OldGamerESO
I knew there was still hope for humanity. In one weekend (one of the worst weekends to play in recent memory!) you've had more insight into AvAvA than 90% of the people who play there every day. I love you.

By the way, as a side note, there's 3x more DC just sitting around waiting to gank someone than in the other 2 alliances, and 3x more AD than EP. I've no idea why. The AD ones, though, don't necessarily seem to be waiting in places of strategic importance or where you'd expect to actually encounter anyone. I wonder about this all the time.

Takes-No-Prisoner

Biro123 wrote: »

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

OP you have a good sense of awareness in PVP. It's really the one thing you need to have mentally equipped when you walk in there. 561cp or not, if you know what you are doing, you'll be able to hold your own just fine.

Sounds like you fit right in with the rest of us crazy folk.

That is key. Its easy to say that there isn't much skill involved - its all down to numbers... Well, that's true and it isn't. The skills you need are situational awareness - being able to fight while knowing whats going on around you, knowing when to push, and knowing when to back-off/escape etc.. Reading the 'Flow' of the battles. That doesn't mean you don't need any duelling skills - those have their place too.

That is the reason why my 20K HP Sorc has rarely gotten ganked on his 4th day of being in PvP. Shields up, mines out if I'm outside in the wilderness.

None have...and rightfully should not DARE walk into my mines nor challenge my shields from stealth, less they want to eat a butt ton of burst damage.

Would you believe me if I told you I had stamina type enemies roll through my mines, only to figure out half health later that rolling through those things is NEVER A GOOD IDEA?!

smh

ThePonzzz

I think your campaign and platform are needed to understand your experience better. It sounds like you were on a rather busy campaign. Just remember, a lot of what's talked about on the forums is anecdotal.

LegacyDM

Good review! I see you have Been introduced to one of the cancer tank builds. I just ignore draconis because he can't fight back and it takes too long to kill him. I wish ad would get smart and just ignore the troll builds and go after those that matter.

As for proc sets. They are not that bad if people would just learn to build builds to counter them. Although, I do admit it is frustrating to die from instant procs that take no skill to use. But I find it's not as bad as people are raging about.

Ganking is truly an art. I can only think of a handful of players on one hand who are really good at it. Otherwise, most are try hard who fail. What you don't see from videos on the forums or hear from players in game is about all the ganks that fail. Ganking gets a bad rap because it's one of the most infuriating things to a player. Your instant killed from stealth with no way to fight back. Of course people are going to rage about that because people want a straight up fight to test their skills. People need to learn to accept that it's going to happen, it's a nb playstyle. Tbh, if a nb fails at a gank they are as good as dead. I like the ganks, it adds an element of surprise and if you build a build against it you should win a lot. Most do not share my thoughts and resort to third party addons to give them the edge against ganks. But to his is their own I guess.

Now for the worst part about cyrodil. If you haven't experienced yet you will. The lag is a killer. Your skills are delayed and feel sluggish when you weapon swap. Frames per seconds drop. And the spikes are horrendous.

Caroloces

Wow, Old Gamer, your experience matches mine to a T! Except I usually don't play for those long stretches. I'm an old gamer too (67), been here since Beta, but tended to avoid PVP because of the bad press on the forums and the fact that I would die pretty quickly.
I developed a character (magblade) to farm TelVar stones in IC in order to purchase some items I was interested in. Of course, I was drawn into the general mayhem in Cyrodiil when I got tired of farming, and found out that I loved PVP! The most important element in this transition is to adopt the attitude of basically shrugging off death and not taking it personally.
I've found in the last couple of months That I'm gradually improving, becoming aware of tactics, and gradually building up my assault and support skills.
I really haven't encountered much lag at all, so I believe that ZOS takes this aspect of the game seriously and is gradually making improvements to Cyrodiil performance. The only thing that I noted was an occasional endless loading screen.

So kudos to you, and hope to see you on the battlefield!

Own

OldGamerESO wrote: »

In the past I have dabbled in PvP in order to run the first quests and get some shards, but never more than an hour or two. This weekend I put in some serious time into PvP because I wanted all the skills for the Nord tank I was leveling. I wasn't interested going in to kill people, but just to rack up some AP and level the skills. So I took my level 40 Nord stam DK, built a heavy armor blue impen Seducer 5 piece set with + Magicka enchants, ran health + magicka regen food + a purple resto staff and queued up in the max level, full CP campaign.

I played roughly 16 hours from Friday night through Sunday. I went in having read this forum for months about how much PvP sucks, cancer builds, insta gank mechanics, etc. I guess I expected something different from what I experienced. Also I admit that 16 hours is probably not near enough time to make important judgements.

I have just under 500 cp. My Nord has all its stats in stamina, the CP in all the usual places for a tank (plus some perhaps unusually high amounts in health regen. I am missing so many of my passives because I have not farmed enough shards. I only have half my HA passives and non of my Nord passives yet. basically this character sucks right now, and for PvP he really sucks.

So when I entered Cyradil (as a DC) and checked the map and it was not difficult to tell where fights where happening. I would move to closest keep, grab some wall/door repair kits, exit and ride my horse to where the action was (offensive or defensive). This weekend EP and AD were doubling up on DC so there were a lot of one-sided crushes, but there seemed to be constant action. So basically I would find a battle, usually around a resource node or a keep and heal. I would also attack players with resto staff if they were being concentrated on. I got a large number of kills that way. I rezzed hundreds of players and watched how they died. I died many, many times, but only when concentrated on by many players.

So on to my observations:

• When riding to and from battles I would see people crouched down by the side of the road every 400 yards or so. They were DC but I assume they were "stealthed" to the enemy since they seemed pretty obvious to me. I assume these were DC gankers. Sometimes i would die and ride back to the same battle 10 times and they would still be there in the same spots.
• When riding from keep to battle on roads I would be regularly knocked off my horse and attacked by a night blade. I would change to werewolf and more than 50 percent of the time I could kill them. i am not sure how, I don't even have all my werewolf skills. I would just keep leaping, howling to heal and pounding on them with my claws. I had expected to get insta-ganked given what I read about on the forums. I had a lot of 1-1 fights over the course of the weekend. about 80 percent of the time I did very well against a bunch of players. My guess is they they sucked too. I fought mages with no shields, templars with no heals, nightblades with no health and apparently no stamina because they would only dodge roll 3 times. Point is that I never really witnessed anyone overpowered or one hit ganks on 1-1.
• Next observation is that so many people die to oil or catapults or AOE of all types when fighting around keeps. Me and the other healers would heal everyone and boom there would be 10 dead in front of the keep door. In general they seemed to be medium, most with low health. Even in front of the the keep outside main walls in the wide open spaces players died left and right even though there were no enemy players on the field. We could have 60 people out front and the guys inside are shooting from walls and using their catapults with the big, slow red circle moving around and boom, 10 players dead. I never died from any of this even if I got hit it only took 20 percent off the top. I have no idea why they would die like flies. Little white X's on the ground where ever i would look. So I guess this doesn't line up with "everyone is wearing heavy armor" mantra I read about on here.
• I had an opportunity to see only one un-killable player this weekend. Serra Draconis I think her name is... a templar vampire tank all in white armor. It was pretty amazing to fight her. I saw entire zergs beat on her and she seriously would get on a rock and take it all and laugh, then mist away and bam do it again. DC peeps were yelling in zone about how we needed to stop attacking her, she was unkillable and we were idiots for even trying. Of course I didn't see her killing anyone but I suppose it could have been happening. But all weekend that was the only obvious case of an "unkillable" player. Almost everyone else seemed to be specced for damage with low health and died all the time.
• Almost all the action that I saw took place as 1-1 on the road, in a pitched battle with 100 players around a keep, in smaller group around a resource (blacksmith, farm,lumber) or in a running battle between an enemy keep and ours as either we pushed to them or they to us. These group battles don't seem super organized, or maybe DC is just disorganized. I mean they were fun and all, but it still seemed more about numbers and ganging up on people until they died. Not a lot of "skill" or builds, or OP heavy armor or any of the things people complain constantly about on the forums here. I am not sure where people go to get 1-1 fights except the open road, and if you avoid roads the 1-1 seems to drop to zero. Those 1-1 fights start almost always with a stealthed opening attack.

So this weekend has me sort of second guessing a lot of what I read on the forums about how PvP is broken. I didn't receive any insta-proc kills. I was never ganked from 100 percent to dead and it wasn't because of my skills, build, CP or gear. I checked my recaps. I usually died from 10 people ganging up on me. I didn't really see many "tanky" HA builds evidenced by basically everyone dieing all the time, especially in boring AOE. And pretty much everyone would die (except Serra) if enough people pounded on them.

Maybe there is more to PvP than what I experienced. Maybe Imperial City is where there are fights where HA and proc sets become OP, but I really didn't see it.

Thank You for posting this! Serra is a great player! The forums are a great way to get opinion based information that is probably wrong!

Edit: I like how you analytically attacked cyrodiil. you should make a noob PvP guide.

Malamar1229

does anyone know Serras forum name by chance?