Cyrodiil: What In The Blue Blazes

DelosTheta

I'll say right out of the box: I've been playing 2 years, never tried Cyrodiil. So I made a point of trying this week.

I didn't do too bad, at first.

But today was puzzling, and confusing. SO, because I hate whine threads, I'm just going to state my observations and those of you who actually know what you are doing can kindly provide wisdom and interpretation.

Disclaimer: I play on PS4, and figure some of my observations are platform specific (such as #1). So "Go get a PC" isn't a valid interpretation. A console will be valid for years, but a PC is only as good as the next game that requires the next step better hardware.

1. I was in exactly one great, huge fight in the middle of a keep. I had zero idea what was going on. The animation was so crappy it looked like the images had escaped from a strobelight show. Do you experts actually have a strategy, or do you do like me, and just spam the crap out of area effects?
2. In a number of fights, I could see I was doing next to no damage to enemy players, while they finished me off in just a few seconds. I have sharpened everything, impenetrable everything, gold everything ... heck I'm pretty sure I even have a rabbits foot somewhere, still no good.
3. SO I got assigned a scouting mission, to literally the opposite side of the map. I never could get there. On my final try, I decided to run my maxed out horse at breakneck speed through uninhabited areas. The sucky part of that plan is gates, of course. Some AD started wizarding me (I'm DC ... well, technically AC/DC) and I said, jeez, enough already, I'm on Comet the Super Horse. Nevertheless, the enemy (I never looked around) kept zapping me until I died. HOW? You can't cast on a horse, but I could see on the recap FIVE spells at least.

That's it for now. By the way, free advertisement, player available to good guild, PS4 NA East Coast. By good I don't mean good as in never lose, I mean good as in like the Justice League, and neither Wonder Woman nor Flash ever complained about Hawkman being there, even though all he could do was basically fly over and poop on the bad guy's cars.

Neoauspex

First off, don't judge Cyro by it's current performance; on console the lag is basically making it unplayable right now. There's always lag, but it's not usually this bad. 1 and 2 could both be related to this. 3 is way easier when you know your way around, but usually breakneck horsing it works. Cyro is meant for group play though, so take 2 friends next time and kill that wizard.

EvilAutoTech

I am going to recommend taking Lord Bowler with you.

Lady_Scorp72

The thing to keep in mind is that, especially in the main campaigns, a majority of players in Cyrodiil are very experienced and many have been playing for years. It took me at least a year of playing fairly regularly before I understood and felt comfortable with the rhythm of most battles/fights, and even then, players (especially the good ones) continue to surprise me. That's what I love about PVP...it's never boring!

Re: the animations, it is crazy during keep battles. I turned off Ally Effects, and tinkered with the combat colour sliders and it's a bit better.

For the scouting missions, if you want to avoid combat then stealth is the best way to do this during primetime. As a magblade healer I avoid fighting when I'm not in a group, so I pretty much sneak once I get close to the objective and use Keep Recall Stones to get back to the gate for turn-in. Another option is trying another campaign that your faction is dominating or populations are low. You don't have to complete the objective in the campaign where you accept the quest. Also, riding doesn't prevent you from being hit, and lots of skills have a long range. Rapid Maneuvers mitigates some damage, but not all.

Overall, I find the absolute best ways to thrive and survive in Cyrodiil are:

1. Join groups when possible, enjoy the good ones and dump the bad ones. I've found more good than bad, and I've learned so much from other players. Many are more than happy to give pointers and advice.
2. Situational Awareness is key, and that can only come from experience.
3. Expect to die A LOT. It's normal, happens to everyone, and each death is an opportunity to learn and get comfortable with your skills, preferences, and other play styles.
4. If you have alts, try playing different builds as this can help you better understand enemy skills, combos etc.

TL/DR

It takes time...and a lot of dying...to be experienced in PvP. Try to enjoy the process.

DelosTheta

@Lady_Scorp72 thank you for the very detailed answer!

Most of my scouting missions have been through largely empty terrain, but those gates ... Since I'm new, I only use the scout missions as an excuse to explore the map and snag skyshards.

When you say 'join groups' do you specifically mean guilds, or ad hoc groups? I haven't seen anyone grouping up, is there some sort of secret signal, like "everyone who wants to group meet in front of the keep door" (We used a bar in the Tower back in Destiny 1).

I did come in expecting to die, that's why I jumped into keep battles with my siege gear. Forgot to mention: how do you aim? I at most see tiny little dots with a hint of a health bar. I mean, I can hit the keep, but not the players attacking the keep.

Finally, the alts: yes, the origin of all of this is my Magicka Templar is The Vaporizer in PvE. Even when I got into Cyrodiil, world enemies can't stand up to the blazing onslaught. But players? Ouch. Meanwhile my StamBlade wiped out two Cyrodiil delve bosses solo, tougher ones than in the PvE world. Again, but players? Ouch.

An article I read suggested dueling, but I've always resented the folks who duel around the wayshrines (true or not, it seems to me to correlate with great huge delays on the loading screen).

DelosTheta

@Neoauspex thank you for your reply as well. I could dig around the site for the reason the lag increased ... but it'd be too much like that mission where I had to collect Flesh Atronach parts. At any rate, what changed?

Browiseth

cyrodiil is an...aquired taste


it sucks

i remember it being pretty fun at launch when the performance was good. the sheer spectacle of lord knows how many+ players from each faction smashing against eachother certainly captured the image of all those epic medieval battles we've wanted to feel a part of from the LOTR films. of course in terms of balance it was pretty abysmal at the time...

i guess things haven't changed much, besides the main draw for me being long gone due to the awful performance

Lady_Scorp72

Guilds can be a great way to PvP, especially if you plan to spend a lot of time with it, but I have always just joined in the ad hoc "pug" groups. If there isn't one, then I just follow the crowd. Sometimes people will add me to a group, sometimes I just solo with the masses. Sometimes I ask for advice in zone chat, and more often than not people are helpful. Also, there's no secret signal (that I know of!), but with experience you'll get to know how attack plans play out and you can anticipate where people will be if you want to join the fray. Watch your map for forward camps near unlit keeps, as that can be a good indicator someone is planning to hit that keep and a place you might want to head towards.

For siege, it's about AOE damage. I don't think the siege weapons were designed to hit one target, rather an area, and will do blanket damage to everything and everyone inside that area. Know that when you're hitting a wall or door, any players on the wall within the AOE circle will take damage even if you don't see it. During keep defense I like to have one ballista aimed in the middle of an offensive siege group (often can damage 2 or more ballista/trebs with one shot if placed right), and have one aimed at the ground by the front door if they're using a ram, to damage it and all the players close to it. If other players already have oils over the front door, then I might switch to doubling up on the enemy siege further out. Each battle will be different, but will tend to follow a pattern. Note that while you can get kills from hitting enemies with siege, I've found it to be the least efficient way of getting kills. Oils can be the exception when poured over stacked enemies.

Meatbags too hit a wide area, and often make or break an attack effort. The thing to keep in mind is that it's quite easy for players to dodge all incoming siege damage if they're paying attention, have shields/healers, and are staying out of red. It's quick to jump on and off a siege weapon, and unless there are many firing at an area in sequence, it's easy to avoid incoming damage by timing a shot with the pause of an enemy's siege reload.

I'm not into dueling, and this is why I'm not better at fighting and why I prefer healing. All the players I've talked to who are good at combat, agree that dueling is mandatory. There's just no other way to get good at it, outside of lots of PvP fights. The benefit to dueling with friends is that it gives you the time to assess what went wrong or right, and discuss with your opponent. Also, many guilds have people who like to organize duelling events, so something to keep in mind if you don't like the wayshrine fights (I agree with you on that one!).

Edited to add a link to a great older thread that gives detailed info about siege weapons if you need more detailed info on each type: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/354109/guide-to-siege-weapons

geonsocal

By the way, free advertisement, player available to good guild, PS4 NA East Coast. By good I don't mean good as in never lose, I mean good as in like the Justice League, and neither Wonder Woman nor Flash ever complained about Hawkman being there, even though all he could do was basically fly over and poop on the bad guy's cars.


if you are already in some guilds - go to roster search and type in your own name., so only your name is displayed for your guild...that will help a bit, otherwise the whole time you play your game will be trying to update the location status of all your guildmates...

zos was supposed to "fix/improve" the effect it was having on performance, but, I don't think they ever did...

good call on laying out aoe dots during bad lag...I'd also suggest liberal use of hots also...

sometimes when disconnects occur a bunch, it's best to wait outside the keep and hope your side has enough folks to flip the flags without you...

geonsocal

you used to be able to abandon the daily missions to get different objectives...not sure though if that still works...

depending on what you feel like doing though - cyrodiil ain't a bad place to do a little sightseeing...

it's nice to step away from the AP grind for a while...cyrodiil is probably one of the most beautiful zones in the whole game...

list your build here and you can probably get some tips on how to improve your survivability, sustain and ability to execute others...

everyone dies though...well, almost everyone...quite a few darn near unkillable tanks rolling around cyro...

JumpmanLane

Running sharp and impen ain’t enough. For offense you need a build that’s gonna do SERIOUS. BURST. DAMAGE. which you can TIME to kill some fools. You need more pen than running sharpened weapons...AND DAMAGE!

For defense you need significant mitigation paired with as much % based damage reduction as you can min/max SQUEEZE into your build without giving up DAMAGE.

In big, big fights, what you want to do is kite and always fight near something you can hop behind and break line of sight. And when you do that don’t just run in circles. Run, turn, burst. Run, turn, burst. Tbag...if you’re so inclined.

And don’t do scouting missions. They give crap AP. You want to wander around the map. Wander around the map. Get ALL the skyshards. Best of luck.

As for my bonafides: I started full CP Cyro at level 10, when I got the invite. I killed a grand overlord (which I am NOW) a WEEK later running 3 pieces of twin sisters jewelry and my trusty bow (YUP I was a bowtard). In a 2vX. The fool I was with RAN. The other dummies rezzed their Grand Overlord buddy then mocked me in whispers about my outfit (before outfit stations, fools didn’t wear outfits lol). Then the dummies rode off and left me alive. I wasn’t level 15 and couldn’t even bar swap. I SWORE revenge!

Later on I clipped my first Emp (a CHEESE one) 1v1 in my first Midyear Mayhem in a crappy added campaign. He peeled off from his emp group and I chased the fool. Dropped him with a leap. The fool I was with could brawl. We were two manning. He was a 1vXer who clipped my bowtard StamDK and then we became friends. He taught me everything I know about MagDk. He told me I could do better when I burst his eardrums celebrating getting that emp clipping achievement in Disc. And he was RIGHT.

I MOPPED the emp on my campaign TWICE in five minutes solo, for THAT achievement. I’d spent ALL DAY trading kills with this one Warden 1v1. Keep that in mind. I was kiting this one crappy ball group. Ran around a rock smack into the emp group. I KNEW I was dead! I said, “BLEEP IT!” And leaped! Got the achievement. That Squish emp DIED! Somehow I was still alive. I ran from that rock (you know the one), zig-zagged around some columns, and ran inside of Sej. Caught my breath. Ran back out on the porch. There was the emp AND that Warden from earlier. This was when Wardens were TOUGH!

That was fine. The emp was a SQUISH and I could kite around stuff (which I couldn’t in earlier 1v1s with the Warden as that ain’t exactly honorable in a duel. EVEN in Cyro). But now I had COLUMNS. CLIPPED the Warden. The Emp ran. Now I was running DW and Escapist poisons IX and my INCREDIBLE RNG. The fool FROZE! Clipped.

When I first picked up Volendrung I killed 23 people on Alessia Bridge. I dropped 6 more at Alessia FD and got dropped by siege! Volendrung was brand new and that achievement was bugged. I was pissed.

I clipped a fool who was toting Volendrung fd Bleaks. I had columns. I kited around the ENTIRE DC faction the dummy brought with him, killing and surviving, and saving my leap. He got low, I leapt, and got an achievement. I was still ALIVE. I ran in bleaks. Some DC dummy picked up the hammer. I thought, “BLEEP. IT! I’m going to kill him too.” I ran out. Saw a sea of blue. Thought, “Nah...bleep it...” Then, I ran up that hill (you know the one). I got away and bought a 2 mill AP hammer for the house.

When I got Grand Overlord grade 2, all I needed was 300k AP. I went to Cyro, really itching to play GTA Online so I wasn’t gonna stay but so long. I got down to needing 16k AP and had 119 kills and no deaths. 122 was my kill streak record. I was hiding behind those rocks near the arch FD Alessia (you know the ones), DC to the right of me, AD to the left of me. Should I go for GO grade 2 or the streak. I could pop an invisible pot and sneak away, go play GTA 5...I decided to KILL some fools. BLEEP a streak. And BLEEP a rank. And bleep, bleep, BLEAP GTA 5!

I made GO2 when the Keep flipped. I dropped five fools fighting my way inside. Broke my record of 122. So I’m sitting at 124 and still wanting to play GTA 5 online... but I got a new streak going. So, I’m like, “Bleep it! Bleep a streak! I’ll kill one more dummy for 125 and leave it as a perfect day, on a good number...then some dummy I clipped rezzed out. I musta killed 6...125 and 0!...and Grand Overlord...Grade 2...

geonsocal

great story jumpman

always good to take a little diversion during work to think about cyrodiil...

geonsocal

howdy @DelosTheta - i love your enthusiasm...for a lot of us who've been here a while - pvp is more an addiction than anything...it's just comfortable, fun (performance issues aside) and seems to last forever...the imperial city districts usually have absolute vet boss level type players roaming around and can be a little challenging for newer folks...battlegrounds forces you to play on a timer, so, you lose a bit of the free-flow pvp feeling from playing in cyro...

we've had a few folks over the years kick in with stories and such on a ps4/na (and now eu too) thread we have in the campaigns section: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/291600/ps4-na-and-eu-cyro-ic-insert-unpronounceable-dragon-name-here-this-must-be-the-place#latest

we're not all quite as active as we once were, still real good group of players stop by from time to time...if you ever get the chance, please do stop by and say hi...

oh yeah, to group up - simply type: lfg in zone chat...it'll take you a while to find the right group of folks to hang out with, but, that's a good starting point...

JumpmanLane

geonsocal wrote: »

great story jumpman

always good to take a little diversion during work to think about cyrodiil...

Cool! Same! I watch streams at work! I’m love Cyro!

driosketch

Real quick:

1- Lag happens, but also yes. Drop AoE on flags, above the gates and at the breach.

2- Good traits but PvP is about the burst damage so think about how much damage you can land in the opening. Follow with your CC, debuff, spammable, and your execute. (Some of theses will be the same skill.) While you are negating crit damage, don't forget base damage. Shields or heavy armor if needed, and don't skimp on either health or stam.

3- Scout missions are usually far off. And even though you are fast, a fast character can still hit you a few times before you get out of range, especially if they got the drop on you.

DelosTheta

Thank you everyone!

@geonsocal No guild for me yet, and the PS4 guild finder part of the forum looked kind of ghost town-y last time I checked. And thanks for the tip on LFG.

@driosketch I imagine PC has it a bit better with the crash test dummies that people can zap and that then tell them their DPS. Last I heard, PS4 didn't have that. I guess I could turn on the scroll and add the numbers at super speed ... If only I'd gone to the Vulcan Science Academy instead of starting that rock band ...

My templar is definitely going out again tomorrow. Nightblade ... I rearranged the skills, acquired a few new ones (VIGOR). So I need to bounce around the rest of the world earning XP.

Mr_Walker

DelosTheta wrote: »

I was in exactly one great, huge fight in the middle of a keep. I had zero idea what was going on. The animation was so crappy it looked like the images had escaped from a strobelight show. Do you experts actually have a strategy, or do you do like me, and just spam the crap out of area effects?

I'd hardly describe myself as an expert, but for me it's a little from column a, and a little from column b).

DelosTheta wrote: »

In a number of fights, I could see I was doing next to no damage to enemy players, while they finished me off in just a few seconds. I have sharpened everything, impenetrable everything, gold everything ... heck I'm pretty sure I even have a rabbits foot somewhere, still no good.

Were they grouped with healers? Zo seems to hate healers, but good healers make everyone look good

DelosTheta wrote: »

SO I got assigned a scouting mission, to literally the opposite side of the map. I never could get there. On my final try, I decided to run my maxed out horse at breakneck speed through uninhabited areas. The sucky part of that plan is gates, of course. Some AD started wizarding me (I'm DC ... well, technically AC/DC) and I said, jeez, enough already, I'm on Comet the Super Horse. Nevertheless, the enemy (I never looked around) kept zapping me until I died. HOW? You can't cast on a horse, but I could see on the recap FIVE spells at least.

Bin the quest, but yes, on xbox I've had players on foot able to hit me riding past them at full peed with rapids, even after I'm well past them. Just a mystery.

driosketch

DelosTheta wrote: »

I imagine PC has it a bit better with the crash test dummies that people can zap and that then tell them their DPS. Last I heard, PS4 didn't have that. I guess I could turn on the scroll and add the numbers at super speed ... If only I'd gone to the Vulcan Science Academy instead of starting that rock band ...

My templar is definitely going out again tomorrow. Nightblade ... I rearranged the skills, acquired a few new ones (VIGOR). So I need to bounce around the rest of the world earning XP.

Well first off, the target dummy will still give you a dps rating in the base game. But sustained dps isn't what you're looking for. You want burst, and to that end, yes, absolutely turn the comat scroll on for PvP. Fire each skill one by one, and see what they do. Then try to stack them.

Free tip, combat scroll is the greatest tool for learning to fire siege, even around blind spots or beyond the draw distance. If you are on target, you well see a beautiful bouquet of white or orange numbers flair up. You will see them rise above walls, through the floor, and clear as day even when you can no longer see alliance emblems. You don't need to read them, just know you hit someone, and if they're on fire, you'll see if they try to run off. Second tip, get the kill player quests. This will add feedback for when someone you hit dies.

Baconlad

So. A few things. I play magplar and only magplar...I have a stam sorc in DC I leveled in 2019 and never took him into cyrodiil

I started in cyrodiil on my magplar in 2015 after completing craglorn and all three factions over world quests. Ran out of *** to do so I jumped into cyrodiil.

It was rough, I sucked, skills didn't seem to work on enemies like they did in pve. I was dumbfounded. I joined a large guild and played with them for a year until I got bored of being in 12 man fights and still sucking at 1v1.

I started to research ALOT. Watching better players than you really helps. Anyway by the time I began to see improvements in myself, they nerfed regen in morrowind. So my big thing that year was figuring out how to sustain since you didn't have to worry about it before. I continued to see improvements.

When summer set can out....my god that was by far my favorite patch. Dark flare, buffed radiant oppression, hard hitting long range javelin, soul assault, and total dark. I had figured out how to sustain so well that I was back to running 750 unbuffed mag regen, and was running a 30k dark flare tooltip and 130k soul assault tooltip. I was dueling the best of them and able to catch so many of the even the greatest players off guard for a quick kill. It was dumb. I ran it for the year till elsweyr patch...

And I'm back to the regular old puncturing sweeplar. Its fun. But I will give you a few tips to success: you are going to suck....for a long time. In order to be a better player, you have to know when you opponent is going to do a certain thing. Know when to go offensive, know when to bounce. Gear is important, but nothing is more valuable than knowing when to keep pushing pressure or when ur enemy is going to push pressure. As a newer PvPer, you need to not focus on killing anyone, but get a gear set and build focused around 50% staying alive, 25% regen 25% damage.

I would personally recommend you run a build that has 1500-2000 magic regen buffed. 2500-3000 spell damage and 30k max mag at least. With at least one gear set focused on defense, like impreg or pariah. Get vampire. Slot puncturing sweeps, toppling charge, inner light, purifying light, elemental drain, crescent sweep.
Back bar you want purge, channeled focus, honor the dead, mist form, and deep thoughts (to help you with stam regen until you learn to conserve stamina).

Truth be told you should purposefully get into outnumbered fights and learn to just survive as long as you can, youll slowly learn to see a hole you can dump some pressure in. if you find defense too easy than get a bit more damage, if ur always topped off on magic than go for less regen.

You'll figure it out, its awesome to see new players in PvP, sorry if we seem toxic...its all out a love though. It will take time but you can be a force, just wait till you get your first person run from a fight they outnumbered you in XD good luck brother!

ArchMikem

DelosTheta wrote: »

[*] I was in exactly one great, huge fight in the middle of a keep. I had zero idea what was going on. The animation was so crappy it looked like the images had escaped from a strobelight show. Do you experts actually have a strategy, or do you do like me, and just spam the crap out of area effects?

Whenever two zergs converge indoors and the lag amps up, all you can do is try to keep out of the red and focus one player at a time, or do what you do and just throw down AoEs to help supplement other people's damage. Or you could be clever and plop a Catapult just outside the door or breach and fire into the Keep. Those tighter spaces make Siege really effective.

[*] In a number of fights, I could see I was doing next to no damage to enemy players, while they finished me off in just a few seconds. I have sharpened everything, impenetrable everything, gold everything ... heck I'm pretty sure I even have a rabbits foot somewhere, still no good.

Yup. The high numbers you see that you're doing against NPCs will shrink to tickles against players, and just because you've put impen on your armor doesn't make you tanky, do you also have high Physical and Spell resistance? Do you use any abilities that reduce your damage taken? These veteran players have spent the last several years creating nigh invincible builds, there are so many players that can mitigate and out heal damage from multiple attackers and then turn around to burst a player down in a couple hits. It feels incredibly unfair, but that's just taking advantage of the game.

[*] SO I got assigned a scouting mission, to literally the opposite side of the map. I never could get there. On my final try, I decided to run my maxed out horse at breakneck speed through uninhabited areas. The sucky part of that plan is gates, of course. Some AD started wizarding me (I'm DC ... well, technically AC/DC) and I said, jeez, enough already, I'm on Comet the Super Horse. Nevertheless, the enemy (I never looked around) kept zapping me until I died. HOW? You can't cast on a horse, but I could see on the recap FIVE spells at least.

Speed builds are a thing, but if it was a Magic character attacking you it may have been a MagSorc spamming Streak in order to keep up with your Mount.

NBrookus

1) Lag is a serious issue, and in big fights sometimes everything doesn't render. But there is also an enormous amount of visual feedback to process in a large fight, and it's not scripted so it's all by the seat of your pants. Every skill, armor set and siege weapon has a visual and/audio queue, and learning the majority of them takes time. What's annoying red versus OMG RUN AWAY red can be critical. My recommendation for a noob is to play the edges and observe more than attack. Situational awareness of the battlefield in 3D helps you not overextend or get smashed between two forces. If it's really confusing, run 3 oils over the breach or on the sides of the stairs. If helps a defense a lot and gives you a chance to watch how different groups try to push a breach.

2. Kudos for showing up in impen. Damage mitigation, healing and damage all behave differently in Cyro. While reducing critical damage is very important, it's not everything. The best mitigation is not getting hit (moving, dodge), damage reduction (block, Major Protection, other percentage based reductions), and then phys/spell resistance. PVP kills are usually based on overwhelming burst combos versus and enemy who is actively trying to avoid eating the whole combo. If you are copying builds, be sure you pick one that suits your playstyle and you understand how all the parts work together. It's very easy to be a magplar with huge survivability in PVP. Securing kills as a solo magplar DD is a much harder task.

3. 99% likely it was a magsorc. The horse runs out of stam and down you go. You can *usually* rapids a max speed/stam horse past a solo attacker but magsorcs can often pull you off because of their speed and range. On a magplar, even if you get off and engage, chances are at best you tank out their damage but they streak into the sunset if you get close and then you are stuck in combat for the next 10 minutes... unless they streak back and try again. It happens. Anyway the Cyro repeatable quests are not essential and don't have any bearing on map play. You can ignore them, or do them when convenient...entirely up to you.

xxthir13enxx

https://youtu.be/xfqB2D202Nc

Do at least one of these Quests per day and collect you Gladiator proof
Once you have enough proofs you can purchase and create a Runebox to use or Sell

G’d profits

BrokenGameMechanics

Unfortunately the current meta drives most PVP builds to be nigh unkillable. In one way I understand that ZOS wants a everyone to be able to participate.

An unfortunate side effect is that an all out offensive build will basically noodle slap most of the builds running in PVP. Most are Templar builds and some folk here gave some details on those. You will basically get to run around, and feel pretty good as it will take 4-5 plus to zerg you down.

I empathize with your frustration that you might think you'll have some satisfaction be opting instead to go with a more high risk reward approach and try a go for broke golded out totally offensive build only to find out you can't make a dent against the majority of opponents. As you mentioned you will only do noodle slapping damage and in turn these "defensive" builds will clean your clock with 5-+10K damage.

In other words, in the current ZOS meta if a defensive build battles an offensive build, the defensive will do far more damage to the offensive build then the offensive build will do to the defensive.

Though I didn't hear or read this first hand you'll see now and then on some posts that the ZOS combat team has stated they want everyone to have to slot 1 defensive set and making 2 offensive sets far less viable.

In a way I can see it. In a 1O1D vs 1O1D draw and neither can kill the other. A 0O2D is impossible to kill but can't kill so draw. A 1O1D vs a 2O0D the offensive build loses. And then for the few hold out 2O0D vs 2O0D builds can be pretty exciting. Under this matrix the majority of player base is happier.

Before they moved in this direction there was a lot of complaining by newish PVP players how they were getting wiped out by too easily. Of course it was because these more experienced PVP players only had better gear or more CP points, and never because they just had a lot more experience in the game. ZOS tried playing with a few of the curves to "boost" CP so your first few hundred points had a more dramatic effect. However they finally relented and opted with the current raise the floor, lower the ceiling until they met approach.

In summary, stay with an all out offensive build for the challenge and a lot of frustration while honing your pvp skills, otherwise go with what was suggested with a defensive build, mostly Templar. If you stick offensive, accept that you will be steam rolled by a defensive jab spamming Templar over and over and over, but enjoy the fact that if you really work your butt off through hard earned skillful play you will eek out a victory here and there with your noodle damage against them that is really satisfying.

DelosTheta

Thanks everyone, this has been an amazing thread! I didn't really know what to expect when I posted it, but I'm glad it's turned into this communal wisdom thread.

@driosketch I had not even thought about using combat scroll for that purpose. That's a great tip!

@Baconlad I guess I shouldn't really get too comfortable with anything just yet ... when the new chapter starts, and the changes percolate through, chances are the preferred builds will as well.

@ArchMikem @NBrookus I don't play streak myself ... well, until today on my StamSorc. Having experimented with it, that's probably what happened, the ol' streak-n-shoot.

@BrokenGameMechanics I am trying 5 Heavy + 2 Medium on my StamSorc, switched off to S&B, experimenting with sets to find a good fit (Shacklebreaker base). But as above, probably midsummer the world will change once more.

xWarbrain

DelosTheta wrote: »

I'll say right out of the box: I've been playing 2 years, never tried Cyrodiil. So I made a point of trying this week.

I didn't do too bad, at first.

But today was puzzling, and confusing. SO, because I hate whine threads, I'm just going to state my observations and those of you who actually know what you are doing can kindly provide wisdom and interpretation.

Disclaimer: I play on PS4, and figure some of my observations are platform specific (such as #1). So "Go get a PC" isn't a valid interpretation. A console will be valid for years, but a PC is only as good as the next game that requires the next step better hardware.

1. I was in exactly one great, huge fight in the middle of a keep. I had zero idea what was going on. The animation was so crappy it looked like the images had escaped from a strobelight show. Do you experts actually have a strategy, or do you do like me, and just spam the crap out of area effects?
2. In a number of fights, I could see I was doing next to no damage to enemy players, while they finished me off in just a few seconds. I have sharpened everything, impenetrable everything, gold everything ... heck I'm pretty sure I even have a rabbits foot somewhere, still no good.
3. SO I got assigned a scouting mission, to literally the opposite side of the map. I never could get there. On my final try, I decided to run my maxed out horse at breakneck speed through uninhabited areas. The sucky part of that plan is gates, of course. Some AD started wizarding me (I'm DC ... well, technically AC/DC) and I said, jeez, enough already, I'm on Comet the Super Horse. Nevertheless, the enemy (I never looked around) kept zapping me until I died. HOW? You can't cast on a horse, but I could see on the recap FIVE spells at least.

That's it for now. By the way, free advertisement, player available to good guild, PS4 NA East Coast. By good I don't mean good as in never lose, I mean good as in like the Justice League, and neither Wonder Woman nor Flash ever complained about Hawkman being there, even though all he could do was basically fly over and poop on the bad guy's cars.

No way I'm reading everyone's responses, sorry if I'm repeating anything:

1. Yes. We have a strategy, and, yes, the strategy is to spam the crap out of AoEs as much as the lag will allow you to. All muscle memory for a rotation of any kind goes out the window - you will need to hit a button 4 - 8 times and watch for the animation to know it actually went off. You can get up, stretch, and grab a drink between frames sometimes.

2. Hopefully someone asked what your build is and went over some things for you to try. I recommend trying to take resources by yourself against NPCs. Its tougher than it sounds and will help you get your defensive rotation down if nothing else. Just keep your head on a swivel and run into the tower if its too much. You can kite the NPCs in there if you need to. Take out the mage guard up top first if you're melee-only. Always take out the menders before the guards.

Whether you practice on a resource or not, the moral of the story is to work on surviving fights first, add damage more and more as you get comfortable surviving.

3. You don't need to do the mission you're assigned. Most of them are way out of reach and not worth the travel time, unless your alliance happens to have that keep on the other side of the map. Abandon and pick up the quest until you get a closer one. The conquest board gives you a once-per-day Arena....I'm blanking on the name. Collect 50, make a costume, sell it for a good amount of gold. Skip the "Capture 3 Towns" quest every time until you can take Crops/Vlas/Bruma alone.

People will try to gank you on your mount. It damages you and drains the mount's stamina till you get knocked off. By that point you're probably at or below 50% health already. Even if you're moving fast, they can put DoTs on you or hit you from 42 meters away. Some people can sprint almost as fast as most people can ride.

Good luck! Keep asking questions with people you play with. Play in all different size groups as well as alone. Don't be scared to die. You have infinite lives.

krachall

My typical solo Cyro experience on my stamblade goes like this. Note that I'm following one of the "accepted" stamblade PVP builds to the letter.

1. Find a squishy looking target and attack from stealth.
2. Stun target and begin combo I've practiced on a dummy for hours. Unleash everything I have with fury while target is stunned. I'm running a full offensive potion with nasty poisons and using my ulti.
3. Get target to about 7/8 health. Target heals to full, stuns me, and kills me in 2 hits.
4. Target teabags me until I respawn at a keep.

There are some players that are just REALLY damn good at pvp and will mop the floor with us who aren't regardless of gear or build. I'm only reasonably successful when running with a group.

JumpmanLane

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

Unfortunately the current meta drives most PVP builds to be nigh unkillable. In one way I understand that ZOS wants a everyone to be able to participate.

An unfortunate side effect is that an all out offensive build will basically noodle slap most of the builds running in PVP. Most are Templar builds and some folk here gave some details on those. You will basically get to run around, and feel pretty good as it will take 4-5 plus to zerg you down.

I empathize with your frustration that you might think you'll have some satisfaction be opting instead to go with a more high risk reward approach and try a go for broke golded out totally offensive build only to find out you can't make a dent against the majority of opponents. As you mentioned you will only do noodle slapping damage and in turn these "defensive" builds will clean your clock with 5-+10K damage.

In other words, in the current ZOS meta if a defensive build battles an offensive build, the defensive will do far more damage to the offensive build then the offensive build will do to the defensive.

Though I didn't hear or read this first hand you'll see now and then on some posts that the ZOS combat team has stated they want everyone to have to slot 1 defensive set and making 2 offensive sets far less viable.

In a way I can see it. In a 1O1D vs 1O1D draw and neither can kill the other. A 0O2D is impossible to kill but can't kill so draw. A 1O1D vs a 2O0D the offensive build loses. And then for the few hold out 2O0D vs 2O0D builds can be pretty exciting. Under this matrix the majority of player base is happier.

Before they moved in this direction there was a lot of complaining by newish PVP players how they were getting wiped out by too easily. Of course it was because these more experienced PVP players only had better gear or more CP points, and never because they just had a lot more experience in the game. ZOS tried playing with a few of the curves to "boost" CP so your first few hundred points had a more dramatic effect. However they finally relented and opted with the current raise the floor, lower the ceiling until they met approach.

In summary, stay with an all out offensive build for the challenge and a lot of frustration while honing your pvp skills, otherwise go with what was suggested with a defensive build, mostly Templar. If you stick offensive, accept that you will be steam rolled by a defensive jab spamming Templar over and over and over, but enjoy the fact that if you really work your butt off through hard earned skillful play you will eek out a victory here and there with your noodle damage against them that is really satisfying.

That’s funny.

DelosTheta

Update:

I eventually brought all 4 of my 50+ (575 CP) characters into Cyrodiil, to varying degrees of success. Surprisingly, the character I did best with was a NEW one: Breton Magicka Sorceror. I kept changing skills as I leveled, trying to find one that did a big, bad blast of damage. I'm low level, so for right now the quickfire is Storm Form -> Daedric Prey -> Scamp Zap -> then repeat Crushing Shock / Light Attack until I get the Crystal Fragments to fire.

The new character (Samara Deleyn) did the best of all four. I took some advice from above, and spent a lot of times watching battles, then joining in when I figured out I could be useful. (Hey, it worked for Benedict of Amber.) To my surprise, I think I may have turned around a battle in front of a keep by casting a timely Resto skill, so that when the door fell, we charged in at full strength.

The one surprise was a camping Nightblade in a keep we took. I was repairing the front door, and got shanked. I did chuckle when basically a Rugby team from my side charged in and smoked the guy so fast, the animation showed his corpse running away (scooting across the floor like a Roomba.) Then I got a kind resurrection, and finished fixing the door!

Neoauspex

DelosTheta wrote: »

Update:

I eventually brought all 4 of my 50+ (575 CP) characters into Cyrodiil, to varying degrees of success. Surprisingly, the character I did best with was a NEW one: Breton Magicka Sorceror. I kept changing skills as I leveled, trying to find one that did a big, bad blast of damage. I'm low level, so for right now the quickfire is Storm Form -> Daedric Prey -> Scamp Zap -> then repeat Crushing Shock / Light Attack until I get the Crystal Fragments to fire.

The new character (Samara Deleyn) did the best of all four. I took some advice from above, and spent a lot of times watching battles, then joining in when I figured out I could be useful. (Hey, it worked for Benedict of Amber.) To my surprise, I think I may have turned around a battle in front of a keep by casting a timely Resto skill, so that when the door fell, we charged in at full strength.

The one surprise was a camping Nightblade in a keep we took. I was repairing the front door, and got shanked. I did chuckle when basically a Rugby team from my side charged in and smoked the guy so fast, the animation showed his corpse running away (scooting across the floor like a Roomba.) Then I got a kind resurrection, and finished fixing the door!

Not surprising, #nerfSorc. Love when people discover the real endgame though, glad you gave Cyro a chance!

bearbelly

DelosTheta wrote: »

A console will be valid for years, but a PC is only as good as the next game that requires the next step better hardware.

You console people who say this ruin your argument; it is wildly inaccurate.
A PC can easily be valid, as built on its first day, for many years, just as a console can be.
Stating otherwise is just plain ignorant.

But whatever... not the point of the thread. Carry on.

SeaGtGruff

xWarbrain wrote: »

3. You don't need to do the mission you're assigned. Most of them are way out of reach and not worth the travel time, unless your alliance happens to have that keep on the other side of the map. Abandon and pick up the quest until you get a closer one.

I find the missions which are way out of reach to be rather enjoyable.

For one thing, even if you have to slowly sneak across the entire width of Cyrodiil, it can be a great way to discover points of interest, delves, skyshards, and other locations.

Also, the forts and resources which are furthest from your own alliance's home base, and deep in enemy territory, are often far from where the action is, so once you get there you'll probably be able to carry out your mission without much opposition-- depending on the type of mission, of course, and how long it takes you to complete it, so be prepared to run, hide, and sneak away if you start to draw attention to yourself.