ESO PVP ... Questions

One_ofMany

I've enjoyed PVP in past MMOs but I'm not very good at Twitchy targeting. Are there any solid classes that do well in a group where I'd be doing large AOEs or being support?
There seem to be several types of PVP in ESO. What are the differences?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Any class can be useful in group settings depending on group size/group type.

For 8-14 here's a rough guide, usefulness most to least (top to bottom).
Healing (mag):
Templar
NB/ Sorc
Necro / Warden
DK

Support(mag):
Sorc
Necro
Warden / NB
Templar / DK

Support(stam):
Necro
Sorc
Warden / Templar
NB / DK

DPS (Mag):
Warden
NB / DK
Necro / Sorc
Templar

DPS (Stam):
Warden
Necro / Sorc
DK / Templar
NB

This being said it is always better to play the class you know the best unless your group lacks a certain role and you can perform it well enough.

In terms of PVP types you have the following general areas:

'Zerg surfing' - where you follow around your factions main pushing lanes, can be done solo or in a group. You can make a difference by actually being useful sieging / pushing in and clearing enemies counter sieging etc. Its also an easy way to kill other groups fighting because you can pick when to attack when they are distracted killing the rest of the pugs.

'Outnumbered' - Generally this falls into 3 main groups, Solo, Small group, 'ball group'. Solo and Small group play much the same way - generally kiting until the outnumbered fight is more in your favour, quickly focusing an enemy down and then moving onto the individual enemy, fights will normally revolve around easy to capture objectives like resources / respawn lanes.
Ball group gameplay is similar to this in some ways but the aim is to take on far higher numbers in order to stay outnumbered in a similar proportion to small group, the main role of ball groups is to kill zerg groups (see below) as well as bring fights away from the front lines. The objective is generally to kill large groups of enemies in burst windows as a team, ideally in chokepoints. Fights normally revolve around harder to take objectives like keeps/outposts but should always be away from your factions front lines so that you don't end up zerg surfing with your group. You rely more heavily on your group working together to keep you alive whilst outnumbered rather than being completely self sufficient in order to maximise your performance in your given role.

'Zerg groups' - these are the groups which the solo players are surfing on the front lines, they are normally 18-24+ and generally are fighting along the main keep-outpost-keep corridors. Generally these groups rely on outnumbering their enemies in order to win.

tsaescishoeshiner

All classes have good AoE damage, but many AoE skills are ground-targeted DoTs, which means your opponent can just ... walk out of the AoE

Templars have good AoE damage, and their strong melee spammable doesn't even require a target. Healing: good burst heal, great heal ult that basically gives everyone near you like 5 seconds of safety

Wardens also have a strong core AoE skill — Scorch, which you use every 3 seconds to deal damage in front of you. Bear ult can also deal free damage for you, and frost ult is great AoE with group buffs. Healing: good group buffs and AoE heals, cheap AoE heal ult

Sorcerers can have good AoE damage depending on build. Pets really help with non-targeted damage. Healing: great multiple-target burst heal, really easy to use

You don't need to go full healer to heal in PvP—just (usually) slot a resto staff and use heals-over-time every now and then. Every class can add healing support in PvP

Major_Lag

One_ofMany wrote: »

I've enjoyed PVP in past MMOs but I'm not very good at Twitchy targeting. Are there any solid classes that do well in a group where I'd be doing large AOEs or being support?
There seem to be several types of PVP in ESO. What are the differences?

Try support sorc, it's a blast to play and has excellent group utility when played correctly.
A well placed (and well timed!) negate can easily turn the tide of battle and lead to the enemy group wiping, as opposed to your own.

Words of warning though - as with any group support role, it's completely unsuitable for solo play. In other words, stick with your group at all times.

On a support sorc you will have excellent mobility and can usually escape most sticky situations to rejoin your group, but forget about trying to fight other players on your own if/when separated from the rest of your group - that won't work, since a support build just doesn't have the right stats and abilities for solo play.

One_ofMany

What are BattleGrounds and Campaigns VS just entering the PVP zone area?
How do you unlock and rank up the PVP skills?

Major_Lag

One_ofMany wrote: »

What are BattleGrounds and Campaigns VS just entering the PVP zone area?
How do you unlock and rank up the PVP skills?

You unlock the PvP skill lines by earning Alliance Points (AP).
AP is pretty much the "currency" of PvP, it's a bit of a hybrid between EXP and gold. You get it for killing enemy players and completing PvP objectives, but it can also be banked and used to buy things with.

Campaigns are the "open world" PvP game mode, balanced around group vs group gameplay - generally speaking, a rather poor place place to be running solo, unless you are very skilled and/or a masochist. (or unless you are doing the PvE objectives, in which case you might sometimes run into another solo quester or 2)
It's best to either form your own group (friends/guildies), join a PvP guild, or just "LFG" in zonechat and join whichever group happens to be running at the time.

You can't "just enter the PvP zone area" because that is not possible - in fact, the only way to enter Cyrodiil is to queue for a campaign.

Once you figure out which campaign you want to play, remember to set it as your "home campaign" so that any AP you earn there counts towards your end-of-campaign rewards.

There are 4 campaigns:

• Gray Host - CP enabled, the most popular campaign but also the most laggy. Also it is subject to "alliance lock", which means you can play it on characters of one alliance only in every 30 day campaign cycle.
• Ravenwatch - no-CP campaign, no alliance lock.
• Blackreach - the other CP-enabled campaign, no alliance lock. Low population (mostly empty) most of the time, this is a good place to grind for emperor or to pursue the PvE map completion objectives (delves, skyshards etc.)
• Icereach - below level 50, no-CP campaign. Generally not relevant, unless you like to reroll characters and "twink them out".

There's also the Imperial City (both CP and no-CP versions of it), but that's a very... specific place, and widely disliked because of its questionable design and a lacking implementation.
It does have one of the best PvE questlines in the whole game, though.

Battlegrounds - that's a 4v4v4, no-CP game mode which takes place on fairly small maps.
It's currently suffering an identity crisis, since it's a group-oriented game mode but since a few months you can only queue solo.
Also the group finder is broken, and matches sometimes begin with unbalanced teams (for example 4v3v2).
But despite its shortcomings, this is probably the best mode to learn how to PvP in.

Finally... pro tip, it's best to avoid the CP-enabled PvP modes until you have a few hundred CP - ideally 600+ but at the very least 300-400, otherwise you will be too gimped (build-wise) to compete with most of the 810+ veterans in there.

One_ofMany

How are you locked? You cannot do any PVP in a different Alliance on that ONE toon or on all?

Dirt_Rooster

An alliance locked campaign will only allow you to play that specific campaign on one faction. If you are locked to Ebonheart Pact on that campaign, you can not bring an AD or DC character there until the campaign resets and you again choose which faction you want to be locked to. It's only specific to that campaign though.

One_ofMany

Dirt_Rooster wrote: »

An alliance locked campaign will only allow you to play that specific campaign on one faction. If you are locked to Ebonheart Pact on that campaign, you can not bring an AD or DC character there until the campaign resets and you again choose which faction you want to be locked to. It's only specific to that campaign though.

But is it Account wide or just the character I initially choose it with?

One_ofMany

Major_Lag wrote: »

One_ofMany wrote: »

What are BattleGrounds and Campaigns VS just entering the PVP zone area?
How do you unlock and rank up the PVP skills?

You unlock the PvP skill lines by earning Alliance Points (AP).
AP is pretty much the "currency" of PvP, it's a bit of a hybrid between EXP and gold. You get it for killing enemy players and completing PvP objectives, but it can also be banked and used to buy things with.

What if I'm not killing though just healing and buffing?

Major_Lag

One_ofMany wrote: »

Dirt_Rooster wrote: »

An alliance locked campaign will only allow you to play that specific campaign on one faction. If you are locked to Ebonheart Pact on that campaign, you can not bring an AD or DC character there until the campaign resets and you again choose which faction you want to be locked to. It's only specific to that campaign though.

But is it Account wide or just the character I initially choose it with?

It is account wide - that's the entire point of the faction lock.
It would not make any sense for it to not be account wide, since then it would just accomplish exactly nothing.

The design intent behind that mechanic was to prevent players from switching factions at will and unbalancing the map. Of course that also had other side effects, but that's beside the scope of this discussion.

Finally - and this should go without saying - faction lock is irrelevant to you if you only have characters of a single faction.

One_ofMany wrote: »

Major_Lag wrote: »

One_ofMany wrote: »

What are BattleGrounds and Campaigns VS just entering the PVP zone area?
How do you unlock and rank up the PVP skills?

You unlock the PvP skill lines by earning Alliance Points (AP).
AP is pretty much the "currency" of PvP, it's a bit of a hybrid between EXP and gold. You get it for killing enemy players and completing PvP objectives, but it can also be banked and used to buy things with.

What if I'm not killing though just healing and buffing?

That's a question to which no straightforward, short answer exists.

To make a long story short, you can earn AP through "assists" - if you heal your allies while they are in combat with an enemy (or enemies), and your allies manage to kill the enemy(-ies).
But there is a lot of weirdness with how credit for enemy kills is awarded, and it's not even consistent between different objectives (achievements, "kill X" quests, earning AP).

For the record, dealing damage is also considered an assist - unless you happen to land the killing blow, in which case you are fully credited with the kill.

Generally speaking, it's best (in multiple ways) to slot at least some damaging abilities and assist with dealing damage at times when there is no great need for heals/buffs - such as when finishing off the stragglers from a losing enemy group.
If your class has a good ranged class DOT, use that. If it doesn't have one, slot a spammable.
Crushing Shock works great for this, since it lets you interrupt enemies who try to revive their fallen comrades, amongst its many other uses.

kaithuzar

One_ofMany wrote: »

I've enjoyed PVP in past MMOs but I'm not very good at Twitchy targeting. Are there any solid classes that do well in a group where I'd be doing large AOEs or being support?
There seem to be several types of PVP in ESO. What are the differences?

Sounds like you want to play DK or templar.