leveling pvp skill lines with minimal actual pvp, while solo

Linaleah

is it even possible? just about every build requires skills from further down in assault and/or support lines. apparently i need a warhorn on my healers to buff the raid, among other things.

the thing is. I've never been a fan of pvp and in ESO, I'm REALLY not a fan. to put it mildly. I keep looking at the coming pvp event and wobbling between trying to talk myself into participation and talking myself out of wanting acess to those decorations.

so... do I have any options? at all? no I don't have people I could regularly pvp with, as i don't like pvp, i never bothered to find them. i need those abilities for pve content anyways. is there ANYTHING I can do to level those skill lines (that doesn't require me dying repeatedly to someone who is far better geared, skilled, actualy likes pvp and seems me as free ap, not that dying repeatedly would earn me any AP in a first place), or am I SoL

Sigtric

If you're on a healer, don't go solo? Go find people to heal! Sure, you're going to die some but that doesn't hurt you in anyway.

Healing is good AP.

AlnilamE

Yes, but it is slow. The Cyrodiil dailies give some AP. As do the scouting missions. You will be running all over the map though, and you may find enemy players if you are not careful.

The other thing you can do (but this will cost a fair amount of gold) is to repair keep walls whenever you can. When a keep is taken over, the walls upgrade after a time (if resources are owned), but the current health of the wall remains the same. So you can repair the walls and doors to bring them to 100%.

What faction are you in?

Demycilian

I just stalk zergs/groups and heal them. Can get you into some fun and intense battles too.

geonsocal

you can zerg surf and still play solo...healers make excellent AP...put on a bunch of heavy armor, make sur you have good shields, slot rapid maneuvers and chase random ally groups...

or, you repair walls and just go afk while parked at an outpost...

AhPook_Is_Here

defend keeps that your faction is attacked at frequently, follow the zerg around and heal them while light attacking their targets between heals. the only thing that levels assault and defense is your alliance rank so just keep doing that. You get a big bonus award when a defense is over (no combat in the area for about a minute). Do the quests for killing players, and do the starter mission that should get you your first rank. Warhorn comes fast and as a healer it's the only one you need. barrier might be nice too, it comes at the same rank though I think, and purge is nice too for your own use.

kargen27

Healing is easy to get AP. Find a keep that is being assaulted and just spam healing springs on everyone you can. Guild chat usually has some messages saying where help is needed or what is being attacked. If your side wins the battle be sure to stick around for the tick. You can throw some shards at the enemy to provide some offense if you want but for pure AP healing as many allies as you can is hard to beat. You can just tag along with a group if you want. You don't actually have to be in the group. That said as a healer it is easy to find a group using zone chat. Just ask in chat if any groups need a healer. If the campaign is active it doesn't take long for someone to invite you in. Then just stay with the group and keep healing springs on them. When you get the siege bubble skill start using that where needed. Groups tend to like a healer that can keep a bubble up and also heal.

Also get plenty of repair kits and go around to different keeps repairing walls. When your faction has most the map take advantage and visit all the keeps and see if walls need repaired.

Adding this right quick. A tank in our guild levels his tanks up for Caltrops almost entirely just repairing walls. It is tedious but it works. If your faction doesn't have most the map it might not be worth the try but there is a lot of AP to be gained when you repair keeps and towers.

Dantaria

Duh. I will be brutally honest here.

No, you can't earn AP solo. But the whole thing is easy-peasy as healer.

Join any campaign you like, go to Cyrodiil, type LFG in chat, get invite and then... Just stay behind and spam Healing Springs. That's it - run after everyone and spam Springs.

I hate PvP. If it was up to me, I would never be there. But devs think that PvP and PvE interconnection with skills being locked is so smart idea everyone would adore. Well, guess what? It's not. These are two different games and nothing about skill-locking for both parties (PvPers have to do Undaunted, PvEers - farm AP) and "balance changes" is fun. Nothing. How can anyone think this is good idea is honestly beyond me.

I don't give a s**t how useful I am in Cyro. I refused to spend s**t-tones of mats to craft Kagrenac or whatever it is I suppose to use there just for several hours of torture that I have to endure.

I run there in my full SPC divines/infused and spam Springs. That's it. Do it and watch your AP flow.

Just type LFG, accept invite, turn your brain off, run after everyone and spam Springs. That's it.

Linaleah

thank you all for advice. I actualy probably need to do this one more then one character. my main is stamblade so.. caltrops and vigor at least. I've been doing without, but I have a feeling, my enjoyment of certain pve activities would be much higher if i had both. my characters are pretty much in every faction, though I have more of them in AD then any other faction
stamblade is AD.
sorc healer is EP

sounds like I'll be repairing keeps a lot :P running all over the map will have to happen one way or another since skyshards and delves - still need those achievs on at least my stamblade

ShedsHisTail

Linaleah wrote: »

is it even possible? just about every build requires skills from further down in assault and/or support lines. apparently i need a warhorn on my healers to buff the raid, among other things.

the thing is. I've never been a fan of pvp and in ESO, I'm REALLY not a fan. to put it mildly. I keep looking at the coming pvp event and wobbling between trying to talk myself into participation and talking myself out of wanting acess to those decorations.

so... do I have any options? at all? no I don't have people I could regularly pvp with, as i don't like pvp, i never bothered to find them. i need those abilities for pve content anyways. is there ANYTHING I can do to level those skill lines (that doesn't require me dying repeatedly to someone who is far better geared, skilled, actualy likes pvp and seems me as free ap, not that dying repeatedly would earn me any AP in a first place), or am I SoL

If you're healer, do what healers do... Stay in back, try to avoid the action, keep your friends alive.
Find yourself a group (not super hard in Cyro), and let the killers do the killing and share credit for the kills.

idk

It does not take long to get to WH. It is super fast these days. Go into Cyro when it is active and heal people defending a keep. Of course the other alliances need to be attacking keeps your alliance has.

The only time you will have to deal with actual PvP is if they breach into the keep. Most of the time you will be safe and healing people up on a wall.

Tan9oSuccka

PVP is pretty bad. Wall repair, use the scouting board. Defensive ticks are nice as well.

LadyLethalla

But please... please do NOT do what a guy did in BWB while I was running for Empress... which was, while we were defending a keep from a rather determined zerg, suddenly announce, "I've unlocked (x skill)! I'm going now!"
In the middle of a battle. smh

Linaleah

LadyLethalla wrote: »

But please... please do NOT do what a guy did in BWB while I was running for Empress... which was, while we were defending a keep from a rather determined zerg, suddenly announce, "I've unlocked (x skill)! I'm going now!"
In the middle of a battle. smh

I will freely admit. I'm tempted. so tempted. well.. without announcing it to the world, but yanno. i mean... I know that battlegrounds at least have set time limit, but in something like Cyrodill where battle in theory lasts for days, I pretty much have to leave when I need to leave, because sometimes the battle might last long past my tolerance (which is not high when it comes to pvp, to begin with)

geonsocal

@Linaleah ...this is an excellent thread because there is no doubt your sentiment is shared by a great many eso players...

dying in cyrodiil ain't so bad (thankfully minimal armor repairs)...no need to worry about it - it happens to us all: generals and volunteers...

your mission this week: go to cyrodiil and experience at least 10 deaths...

hopefully you'll get a chance to experience the many joyful varieties of death:

getting zerged down by at least 20 enemies...bonus if eye of whatever shows up on your death recap more than twice...

get "ganked" without ever seeing who hit you (preferably while still inside your own keep)...

die due to lag...wherein all your abilities go on a 15 second delay - including healing...

die while riding your mount...

get knocked off the top of one of the milegates and fall to your death...

die to some cold fire siege that never appeared on your screen...

have 5 lethal arrows show up on your death recap...

die while trying to turn in a quest at a town...

die to the player that can hit you 5 or 6 times before you even have a chance to block or shield...

fall off the alessia bridge into the water to be killed by the slaughterfish...

get shot in the back over and over again and die while hopelessly tying to outrun a zerg...

ah, so many wonderful ways to die in cyrodiil - enjoy...

you'll know you've arrived when you've received your first t-bag (not too many baggers anymore), hopefully someone will indulge you in the experience...

Dantaria

LadyLethalla wrote: »

But please... please do NOT do what a guy did in BWB while I was running for Empress... which was, while we were defending a keep from a rather determined zerg, suddenly announce, "I've unlocked (x skill)! I'm going now!"
In the middle of a battle. smh

Honestly? Could have been me.

Sorry, but for many people Cyro is a chore. And our time is ours - we get the hell out of there the moment we're done. Your "battle" means nothing to us, your title means nothing to us. We are there purely for the skill. At best - we're at acceptance stage, so we simply don't care. At worst - we hate it.

AD can have the keep. EP can have this keep. DC can have this keep. For me - there is no difference. I couldn't care less even if I tried.

kargen27

Linaleah wrote: »

thank you all for advice. I actualy probably need to do this one more then one character. my main is stamblade so.. caltrops and vigor at least. I've been doing without, but I have a feeling, my enjoyment of certain pve activities would be much higher if i had both. my characters are pretty much in every faction, though I have more of them in AD then any other faction
stamblade is AD.
sorc healer is EP

sounds like I'll be repairing keeps a lot :P running all over the map will have to happen one way or another since skyshards and delves - still need those achievs on at least my stamblade

When you are doing the delves and skyshards in Cyradiil and you meet an enemy jump, wave or whatever to show you are not planning to attack. Many players will leave you alone if they know you are questing. Some will still pop you but not much can be done about that. Since you don't PvP chances are even if you did attack first they would thump you so might as well try and let them know your no threat.

Caligamy_ESO

Equip a restoration staff, spam the balls of fighters and profit.

Use Scattershot catapults on the ball zergs when defending, they're much harder to dodge and you get tics for all of those players hit when they're killed.

Repair walls and doors of keeps under your alliance control whenever possible.

My PC performance in cyrodil is absolutely horrendous and when I get down in there and try to tough it out I usually just lay down between my fps and then get a recap of what just happened. So I've had to do the above on a few characters.

Duiwel

I would recommend against this OP.

your best 2 options are :

Go in a semi large group and either heal or burst AoE damage.

OR

Practise hard, get a fantastic build and master it in for example the sewers or with the upcomming BG.

Small scale PvP really is where it's at if you want to get a ton of AP ...

No matter how little effort you want to put in OP the fact of the matter is if you actually get good at PvP and own it you will be a better player overall

(I am on a forum hiatus and just logged in to read the thread titles when I saw this)

Tan9oSuccka

LadyLethalla wrote: »

But please... please do NOT do what a guy did in BWB while I was running for Empress... which was, while we were defending a keep from a rather determined zerg, suddenly announce, "I've unlocked (x skill)! I'm going now!"
In the middle of a battle. smh

I kinda did this on Haderus PS4.

Hit Lieutenant, and said in my Popeye voice " I can't stands no more!"

Gadget4

Do the training for 2 skill points, & you'll also receive around 2000 AP
Go to the equipment vendor & buy oil & meat catapults with the AP, & if you have gold, buy wood & stone
Visit the quest board & pick-up a 20-kill bounty

Jump to a forward keep/outpost that your alliance controls & stay there ... repair the walls/doors, fire the catapults from the keep walls, pour oil from above doors when under attack

Once you've built up some AP, buy extra siege equipment, & maybe some fire ballista too ?

Don't be afraid to jump keeps, you'll need to keep checking the map, watching for resource changes etc., in case the nearest keep to those resource changes goes under attack.

Try it .. you may even decide to jump down off the walls & help reclaim the resources after a short while, for the extra AP/xp

Either way, you'll soon notice how fast the Assault skill line is increasing

Linaleah

Duiwel wrote: »

I would recommend against this OP.

your best 2 options are :

Go in a semi large group and either heal or burst AoE damage.

OR

Practise hard, get a fantastic build and master it in for example the sewers or with the upcomming BG.

Small scale PvP really is where it's at if you want to get a ton of AP ...

No matter how little effort you want to put in OP the fact of the matter is if you actually get good at PvP and own it you will be a better player overall

(I am on a forum hiatus and just logged in to read the thread titles when I saw this)

uh. no.
I'm not interested in pvp. i don;t like pvp. i don;t enjoy pvp. no let me rephrase, I DESPISE and LOATH pvp, i hate it with a hatred of thousand suns, I view it on par with cleaning the bathroom. aka - the only reason i would even attempt it is becasue the reward is more tempting then my dislike of the act.

so i have NO interest in "getting good at pvp", i have NO interest in imposing myself on people who actualy enjoy it, i have negative interest in changing my build for it. all I want is acess to abilities that are damn near required in pve which is what I actualy enjoy doing.

and on "better player" subjective. pve, especially cooperative PVE is completely different from pvp. I like to compare it to dancing. pve is a choreographed dance. pvp is.. dance club where you just.. go with a music.

so no, the advice that I'm looking for AND got is how to do it with minimum amount of pain. for me. repairing keeps, healing people from inside the keep? I can do that. even if its not the fastest way, its the least painful way.

TequilaFire

Just group up and actually PvP you might be surprised and make new friends.
Trying to avoid doing this will take you much longer.
Don't have such a closed mine or your bathroom will stink.

Magdalina

Dantaria wrote: »

LadyLethalla wrote: »

But please... please do NOT do what a guy did in BWB while I was running for Empress... which was, while we were defending a keep from a rather determined zerg, suddenly announce, "I've unlocked (x skill)! I'm going now!"
In the middle of a battle. smh

Honestly? Could have been me.

Sorry, but for many people Cyro is a chore. And our time is ours - we get the hell out of there the moment we're done. Your "battle" means nothing to us, your title means nothing to us. We are there purely for the skill. At best - we're at acceptance stage, so we simply don't care. At worst - we hate it.

AD can have the keep. EP can have this keep. DC can have this keep. For me - there is no difference. I couldn't care less even if I tried.

@Dantaria

I'm just going to throw this in for the sake of an argument.

I understand your attitude. However, what if a PvPer takes part in a PvE activity he hates because he needs UD? Let's say he's tanking a dungeon. Let's make it a hard dungeon for the sake of an argument, and let's say he's actually tanking, not just taking a slot and spending his time dead. Then after finishing pre-last boss he gets some achievement - for killing X named enemies, or maybe dungeon completion(either bugged or because he'd completed it before but skipped this one boss) or whatever, that pushed his UD to 9 which is all he needs. So he says "woot ud 9 thx bye" and drops group. Would you view this kind of attitude as acceptable as well? Not intended as an attack, genuine curiosity.

To OP, don't forget town dailies, they give some ap with literally 0 PvP. They're PvE fetch quests. May not be much but there's what 50 of them per day? You can also flip towns/resources when no one is around, then it's just you vs npcs, no PvP involved.

TequilaFire

The part about towns is bad advice as they are stalked by nightblade gank groups and are hard to reach as a PvE solo player.
They are protected because they allow respawn points closer to enemy territory.
Sorry the best place for a player that doesn't PvP much is in a group with others.

Magdalina

TequilaFire wrote: »

The part about towns is bad advice as they are stalked by nightblade gank groups and are hard to reach as a PvE solo player.
Sorry the best place for a player that doesn't PvP much is in a group with others.

Depends where/when. I haven't PvP'd since Morrowind (aside from trying BG) but before that Haderus was basically a buff campaign, Azura and even TF were still mostly quite on off times. No ganker is going to wait 5 hours on empty campaign in vague hopes a PvE-er comes. I mean it's possible but extremely unlikely if you choose a quiet campaign at opposite of primetime.
(NA PC)

Linaleah

TequilaFire wrote: »

Just group up and actually PvP you might be surprised and make new friends.
Trying to avoid doing this will take you much longer.
Don't have such a closed mine or your bathroom will stink.

sigh. I've been playing video games for a few decades. in over a decade of those - i have tried out various mmo's as well as first and third person shooters. at this point? I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I will NOT enjoy pvp. ever. i tried it with friends. i tried it with my SO.
I.
Don't
LIKE
IT.,

open your mind and consider that there are people who dislike pvp for reasons other then closed mind. I don't mind longer if that means no actual pvp. I can do quests (@ Magdalena, the ones you get in little towns, right? scouting etc missions?). i can repair keeps. I do not want to fight people. I was in imperial city, because har har, open mind (and becasue my guild had a scheduled thing with open invite and it was for pve dailies anyways). we ran into couple of people. thank goodness it was just couple of people and we just moved on elsewhere. and i wasn't required to actualy fight them.

I wish, with all my heart that ZOS actualy kept pvp and pve separate. i wish they didn't make undaunted skill line excruciatingly slow to level and require specific kind of pve. I wish they didn't place skills that are invaluable for pve encounters - into pvp skill lines. but... I cannot wish this away anymore than I can wish the dirty bathroom away. so I will do what I have to. but please stop telling me that I might like it. NO.

Magdalina

Linaleah wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

Just group up and actually PvP you might be surprised and make new friends.
Trying to avoid doing this will take you much longer.
Don't have such a closed mine or your bathroom will stink.

open your mind and consider that there are people who dislike pvp for reasons other then closed mind. I don't mind longer if that means no actual pvp. I can do quests (@ Magdalena, the ones you get in little towns, right? scouting etc missions?).

There're the "PvP" dailies that you get at the gate - scout resource, capture resource/keep, kill players, and then there're actual PvE dailies in towns like Cropsford, Bruma, Vlastarus etc. Usual fetch quests like "find that amulet over there and bring it to me", "kill 4 imperial archers" etc. There's about 10 of them per town, I think one of the towns only has 9), and they do award a little bit of AP now too. It's not much, I honestly don't remember the numbers, but it's something.

If you do go there, do try to do it on inactive campaign and/or at non prime time. Also keep in mind they made 3 of those towns PvP objectives with guards and stuff so you'd be more likely to run into people there. On the other hand you can also flip them and get some AP without running into anyone if it's empty.

wazzz56

geonsocal wrote: »

@Linaleah ...this is an excellent thread because there is no doubt your sentiment is shared by a great many eso players...

dying in cyrodiil ain't so bad (thankfully minimal armor repairs)...no need to worry about it - it happens to us all: generals and volunteers...

your mission this week: go to cyrodiil and experience at least 10 deaths...

hopefully you'll get a chance to experience the many joyful varieties of death:

getting zerged down by at least 20 enemies...bonus if eye of whatever shows up on your death recap more than twice...

get "ganked" without ever seeing who hit you (preferably while still inside your own keep)...

die due to lag...wherein all your abilities go on a 15 second delay - including healing...

die while riding your mount...

get knocked off the top of one of the milegates and fall to your death...

die to some cold fire siege that never appeared on your screen...

have 5 lethal arrows show up on your death recap...

die while trying to turn in a quest at a town...

die to the player that can hit you 5 or 6 times before you even have a chance to block or shield...

fall off the alessia bridge into the water to be killed by the slaughterfish...

get shot in the back over and over again and die while hopelessly tying to outrun a zerg...

ah, so many wonderful ways to die in cyrodiil - enjoy...

you'll know you've arrived when you've received your first t-bag (not too many baggers anymore), hopefully someone will indulge you in the experience...

I can help with the getting ganked while inside your own keep part lol
jk

wazzz56

TequilaFire wrote: »

The part about towns is bad advice as they are stalked by nightblade gank groups and are hard to reach as a PvE solo player.
They are protected because they allow respawn points closer to enemy territory.
Sorry the best place for a player that doesn't PvP much is in a group with others.

shhhhhhhh, I have so much fun there..kill one, the two..then farm them until the bring a zerg lol

wazzz56

also @Linaleah what platform are you on? I could help you out....or chaperone you in a questing town to gank the gankers...