PvP Builds - Armor and Traits

lyx10679

I recently been soloing Imperial City for the Zone Story and have on occasion have encountered some PvP fights. While I have not decided to dedicate my toons to PvP just yet, most of my toons are geared towards DPS for solo PvE/Dungeon/Trial. I used a mag DK as a reference point and compared the builds that Deltia, AlcastHQ, and Dottz recommends for PvP. I found that they vary in large degrees.

Deltias = 5 Heavy / 2 Light (Shoulders/Belt) {Trait: Impenetrable}
AlcastHQ = 5 Light / 2 Heavy (Chest/Belt) {Traits: Impenetrable / Well Fitted}
Dottz = 5 Heavy / 1 Medium Head / 1 Light Shoulder {Traits: Impenetrable / Sturdy /Reinforced}

I can understand Impenetrable being the main trait. I am looking for suggestions on traits and armor weight distribution or at least an online guide that gives some sort of guidelines. It might be wishful thinking on my part but I am lazy as to switch between PvE and PvP gears. So is there something "balanced" so that I can do both PvP and PvE/Dungeon/Trial without having to constantly switch between gears? If not, that's ok. Just have to write all this stuff down. LOL

StarOfElyon

I run around solo in light armor on Mag characters typically. Medium on stam characters. 5-1-1. With infused tri-stat on basically everything. Same build in PVP and PVE. I die a lot so you might not want my advice though.

TheCaptainJosh

From what I have observed this patch, only magsorc can be competitive in light armor. Every other mag spec performs better in heavy with procs. I'm currently running four impen and three well fitted, and don't die too much. This is from a no CP perpective btw

BXR_Lonestar

My ganker runs all divines, but that is because he's built to pick off stray targets at the edge of the battle and to maximize damage and utilize stealth/speed for survivability. If he gets caught in a straight up fight I already know the fight is going to be lost. But he's fun to play and he fits my playstyle.

fred4

There are build-specific and playstyle reasons for using different traits. PvP builds vary more than high-end PvE ones, because there is no one optimal thing. Impenetrable was once the default, but the way crit resistance works has been changed.

Forget Deltia. AFAIK he has not played ESO in years. Unless someone else is maintaining his site, his advice is out of date.

If you don't know how to PvP at all and have no interest in learning, then gear does not matter. You may as well wear your PvE gear, because you will die regardless of what you wear. That said, the things you might try include:

(A) Building as a PvP tank with either high health and health-based heals (Arctic Blast), very high health regen (Alessian + Eternal Vigor + Troll King) or healing sets, such as Cyrodiil's Crest. However you will still die. The idea behind such a build is that you hold block and behave passively, hoping PvPers will understand and leave you alone, while you have enough healing so you don't just get steamrolled accidentally. Note that PvP tankiness has as much to do with your multipe sources of self-healing, not just your tankiness. The downside to playing a tank is that PvE becomes a grind and the longer your quests take, the more likely a PvPer will attack you.

(B) Building for damage avoidance, e.g. building a sorc or a nightblade. As a sorc, use Ball of Lightning to escape fights, though some people will still hunt you down. There will be one skill to learn, namely judging the distance from your enemies, before you use an invisibility potion. As a nightblade you can straight up use Shadowy Disguise and players won't see you. Due to various counters to that skill you will still need to give them a wide berth, though.

Either option will involve PvP gear. If on PC, get the Dressing Room - Updated addon.

Trying to explain PvP buildcraft in a post like this is a bit too much. I've been playing for 5 1/2 years, mostly PvP with CP. All armor types are viable. Personally I loathe heavy armor, because you are slow (low sprint speed) and you sustain partially by being in combat, not by running away. Good for a tanky build, but not for damage avoidance.

My first choice for magicka characters is always light armor, but that may be due to experience and playstyle preference. I highly value mobility. For example I find my magplar plays best in light armor with very high stamina sustain for dodge rolls. I wear Eternal Vigor + Amber Plasm on that character.

Should you be tempted into sets that save your bacon, avoid the Phoenix set, but Juggernaut works a treat on a nightblade. You can't be ganked with that set. Let's say you're questing or farming Tel Var and you get attacked. The Juggernaut proc is automatic, heals you and give you a ton of resistances. Then you should have time to get away. Use the Wild Hunt ring.

If you're gravitating towards a particular class or playstyle, let us know.

ArzyeL

Everyone has different setups that work for their play-style, so what is working for me might not be working for you or someone else.
In general what i am using with success is

5 Light/1 Medium/1 Heavy with Impenetrable for Magicka toons

5-6 Heavy/1-2 Medium with Impenetrable & Well Fitted for Stamina

All Medium with Impenetrable or Divines for Gank(Stamina)

lyx10679

fred4 wrote: »

If you're gravitating towards a particular class or playstyle, let us know.

My priority is to solo in Imperial City and Cyrodiil for dailies and finishing the zone stories. Most of the time I am able to avoid PvP fights and complete quests in relative peace. However, I have been ganked on occasion by others. So for me I am looking for a balance between soloing and defending myself if I get ganked. Thus, I am more defensive rather than looking to initiate fights. In a nutshell, my playstyle is to solo with the option to survive and defend myself in an a PvP environment with the occasional assistance in PvE WB/HS/Dungeon/Trial fights if the opportunity presents itself.

As far as "gravitating towards a particular class", all my characters are of different classes. If you need details, please read my signature for the roster.

fred4

OK, here's your build:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=311178

At the end of the day a nightblade will help you disengage from a fight. I have played in IC for the past 5 years. In the early days I switched from DK to NB. Nightblade is just so much smarter. She doesn't need to get into fights she knows she can't win.

The best way to get out of fights on a nightblade is to be really, really fast. To that end we are using everything at our disposal to gain speed:

Wild Hunt ring (+15% in combat)
Concealed Weapon passively (+25% in stealth)
Bow (Major Expedition from dodge rolling = +30%)
3x Swift at purple quality (+18%)
Windrunning CP passive (+2%)

This adds up to a total of +90% speed, e.g. merely 10% under the speed cap in stealth (after a dodge roll) or speed cap when you sprint or you are out of combat (due to Wild Hunt).

Another way to disengage on a nightblade is Shadow Image, but that requires foresight. Simply being fast is better when you are caught off guard.

Vampire is a must, so you can crouch without a movement penalty. Darloc Brae sustain allows you to crouch and run indefinitely on the bow bar. While in crouch you have two options. You can enhance your speed via Race Against Time. Unlike a dodge roll, this won't break your stealth. Alternatively you can cloak to enhance your stealth. If you just crouch, a nearby NPC or player can still see you. With Shadowy Disguise you break all NPC aggro and player visibility, unless the NPCs in Arboretum or a player does something to actively detect you. You can almost sustain Shadowy Disguise indefinitely on a stamblade with Darloc Brae, which is important to extricate yourself from a fight, especially with so many NPCs around in IC that could otherwise give you away.

Juggernaut is gank protection and a general safety net. Nightblades tend to be squishy. This set will give you more time to get away from a fight without dying.

In terms of skills:

Brawler: To kill NPCs while questing. Don't underestimate the Brawler shield. The more NPCs you hit, the bigger the shield. If you get ganked, you will have a shield up. In fact, depending on the strength of the opponent, finishing the NPCs may be the best thing you can do, so you maintain the shield.

Rally: Heal, sustain and Major Brutality. A must and why we're running 2H.
Reverse Slice: AOE execute.
Dawnbreaker: AOE ultimate.
Camou Hunter: Hard to beat for the passives. One less skill to cast.
Mass Hysteria: May get players off your back in an emergency.

Poison Injection: I guess you could use another bow skill. This is just the usual thing many PvPers use.
Resolving Vigor: Essential.
Race Against Time: Speed in stealth, but also snare removal. Very important. If no Psijic, use Shuffle.
Concealed Weapon: Purely passive for the speed bonus.
Shadowy Disguise: You disappear.
Temporal Guard: Another getaway option. If no Psijic, use Soul Siphon.

If you get attacked you have a few options. You can fear, but probably you should just dodge roll. Practice Vigor into a dodge roll within the same second. If you are snared, Race Against Time into a dodge roll. Then Shadowy Disguise. Make sure you immediately crouch thereafter to activate Darloc Brae, otherwise you can't sustain Shadowy Disguise. Potion should be Magicka / Stamina / Health.

I suppose you could use a 1H+Shield back bar, which would make you tankier. Race Against Time would still give you speed. However the automatic speed from a dodge roll on the bow bar is nice and a Juggernaut shield would likely set you back 200K+ in gold.

fred4

lyx10679 wrote: »

I can understand Impenetrable being the main trait. I am looking for suggestions on traits and armor weight distribution or at least an online guide that gives some sort of guidelines.

Reasons to use:

Impenetrable: Default choice for PvP unless you have a specific playstyle in mind for which another trait may be better.

Well Fitted: Your next obvious choice, particularly in medium armor, but for any playstyle that relies on some dodge rolling. Half Impen, half Well Fitted is a common compromise.

Divines: Use for high-damage ganking and bombing builds that put everything into attack, particularly with the Shadow mundus and the Mechanical Acuity set.

Sturdy: If you're a tanky character using 1H+Shield you might use half Sturdy, particularly on DK which already has a blocking passive. Sturdy builds into that strength. Also I make my shields Sturdy on every build.

Infused: I wouldn't really go for it, although it may make sense for magicka sorcerers or any other magicka class that relies on damage shield skills, e.g. to build your magicka as high as possible. Probably only the big pieces (chest, head, legs).

Reinforced: I always prefer Impenetrable over Reinforced, unless maybe in some very specific builds, such as wearing Alessian Armor, which is typical for werewolf builds.

Other traits (Nirnhoned, Invigorating, Training) are useless.

Reasons to use jewelry traits:

Arcane: Good for magicka builds, particularly if they use damage shield skills. Particularly good for magsorcs, magblades and magdens. Magsorc relies on high magicka and that's been meta since forever. Magden and magblade have magicka % boosting skills (Northern Storm, Siphoning skills). Any class can slot Inner Light for another +7% magicka, however magplar prefers Infused jewelry / boosting spell damage over boosting magicka, due to having Minor Sorcery. Mag DK and magcro, I'm not sure.

Robust: OK for stamina builds, although those usually prefer boosting weapon damage, e.g. Infused jewelry, particularly in medium armor due to +15% weapon damage from that armor type. However Infused only comes into it's own at gold quality. Purple jewelry I would still go Infused on most stamina builds, particularly DK due to Minor Brutality. Blue jewelry I would leave Robust.

Infused: The default choice for stamina builds and some magicka builds.

Swift: Speed is highly valuable. Nightblades benefit a lot. Sorcs probably the least, due to Streak and Minor Expedition on stamsorc. Personally either 3x Swift or 1x Wild Hunt, or both, are a must, except for sorc. However you may prefer to be slower and higher damage. Malacath is a popular alternative to Wild Hunt for heavy armor, for proc builds and / or for no CP.

Triune: For either a hybrid build or one that does not use tri-stat food, e.g. not Sugar Skulls, Triune may be useful. Emphasis on may. Your first priority is IMO to load up your build with Hakeijo enchants in that case. The opposite stat tends to be useful in PvP. All magicka builds need stamina for break free and dodge rolling. Some stamina builds benefit from magicka sustain, particularly stamsorcs and stamblades. Personally I am happy with as little 12K of the opposite stat in PvP, which can be achieved via Hakeijo alone, and I prefer opposite stat regen over a higher pool. However people differ in this regard and in no CP you may need a bigger stamina pool on magicka characters, due to the increased break free cost. Still, I don't really think Triune is the way to go in most builds.

Harmony: There is something called a Harmony bomber necro, but I think this was nerfed. Other than that, no use in PvP.

Healthy: Not a bad choice, since there is a high health meta going on with some builds relying on health-based heals, such as Arctic Blast. I'm not sure I'd ever transmute jewelry to healthy, but it's the default for heavy sets and may suit your build.

Bloodthirsty: I have not experimented with this in PvP. I'd go with Infused over Bloodthirsty, but I could be wrong.

Protective: Was overnerfed, therefore no longer used by most. Might make sense in an Alessian (werewolf) build.

Reasons to use weapon traits:

Sharpened: Probably your best choice for your offensive weapon these days. Penetration is highly valuable in PvP and this was buffed to where it outperforms Nirnhoned by a good bit. Also one of the few ways to buff proc damage, which Nirnhoned does not.

Defending: As good as Sharpened is on your front bar, Defending is on the back bar. A good way to bump your resistances.

Nirnhoned: The compromise. Boosts your heals (Rally), which Sharpened does not. Also increases your damage, but not as much as Sharpened. People who want to compromise tend to run Nirnhoned Mauls.

Infused: This has many uses. The more aggressive choice for the back bar weapon, particularly bows. People run the +452 weapon damage enchant. Light attack / Poison Injection activates the enchant. A second use for this trait is that it is bursty damage and burst kills in PvP. Fire, Shock and Disease enchants are popular on the front bar. Some people combine this with the Torug's Pact set. Personally I like an Infused Magic Damage / Return Health enchant on the front bar for magicka builds that lack healing. Beware: This goes to waste, if you experiment with poisons.

Charged: I've seen sorc use this for the increased chance to hit people with status effects. May be good with Force Shock. I'm not entirely sure, since I have not experimented with it.

Powered: I've used it on a resto staff and it makes sense for a healer, I guess. Overall I think Defending is better and at least one healer told me Precise is better (in CP), but that may be wrong.

Precise: An alternative to Powered for healers. May be useful for better Crit Surge uptime on sorc. Overall I don't think this is a good trait for PvP. Nightblades and templars have crit passives that may make this useful in CP and with the Shadow mundus, but unless you fancy a lot of testing / theorycrafting, I would not use it.

Decisive: A speciality trait. There are some builds that go for all out ulti-gen. May be useful for DKs, werewolves (to get to the ultimate) and sorcs that are built to pump out Negates in group play.

Training: Absolutely no use in PvP. If you are in the low-level campaign, you probably want to stay there and not level your character, right?

It might be wishful thinking on my part but I am lazy as to switch between PvE and PvP gears. So is there something "balanced" so that I can do both PvP and PvE/Dungeon/Trial without having to constantly switch between gears? If not, that's ok.

Yes, it is wishful thinking. However I do use many of my characters in both PvP and PvE with merely gear and skill changes and no CP nor mundus change.

Dracane

fred4 wrote: »

lyx10679 wrote: »

I can understand Impenetrable being the main trait. I am looking for suggestions on traits and armor weight distribution or at least an online guide that gives some sort of guidelines.

Reasons to use:

Impenetrable: Default choice for PvP unless you have a specific playstyle in mind for which another trait may be better.

Well Fitted: Your next obvious choice, particularly in medium armor, but for any playstyle that relies on some dodge rolling. Half Impen, half Well Fitted is a common compromise.

Divines: Use for high-damage ganking and bombing builds that put everything into attack, particularly with the Shadow mundus and the Mechanical Acuity set.

Sturdy: If you're a tanky character using 1H+Shield you might use half Sturdy, particularly on DK which already has a blocking passive. Sturdy builds into that strength. Also I make my shields Sturdy on every build.

Infused: I wouldn't really go for it, although it may make sense for magicka sorcerers or any other magicka class that relies on damage shield skills, e.g. to build your magicka as high as possible. Probably only the big pieces (chest, head, legs).

Reinforced: I always prefer Impenetrable over Reinforced, unless maybe in some very specific builds, such as wearing Alessian Armor, which is typical for werewolf builds.

Other traits (Nirnhoned, Invigorating, Training) are useless.

Reasons to use jewelry traits:

Arcane: Good for magicka builds, particularly if they use damage shield skills. Particularly good for magsorcs, magblades and magdens. Magsorc relies on high magicka and that's been meta since forever. Magden and magblade have magicka % boosting skills (Northern Storm, Siphoning skills). Any class can slot Inner Light for another +7% magicka, however magplar prefers Infused jewelry / boosting spell damage over boosting magicka, due to having Minor Sorcery. Mag DK and magcro, I'm not sure.

Robust: OK for stamina builds, although those usually prefer boosting weapon damage, e.g. Infused jewelry, particularly in medium armor due to +15% weapon damage from that armor type. However Infused only comes into it's own at gold quality. Purple jewelry I would still go Infused on most stamina builds, particularly DK due to Minor Brutality. Blue jewelry I would leave Robust.

Infused: The default choice for stamina builds and some magicka builds.

Swift: Speed is highly valuable. Nightblades benefit a lot. Sorcs probably the least, due to Streak and Minor Expedition on stamsorc. Personally either 3x Swift or 1x Wild Hunt, or both, are a must, except for sorc. However you may prefer to be slower and higher damage. Malacath is a popular alternative to Wild Hunt for heavy armor, for proc builds and / or for no CP.

Triune: For either a hybrid build or one that does not use tri-stat food, e.g. not Sugar Skulls, Triune may be useful. Emphasis on may. Your first priority is IMO to load up your build with Hakeijo enchants in that case. The opposite stat tends to be useful in PvP. All magicka builds need stamina for break free and dodge rolling. Some stamina builds benefit from magicka sustain, particularly stamsorcs and stamblades. Personally I am happy with as little 12K of the opposite stat in PvP, which can be achieved via Hakeijo alone, and I prefer opposite stat regen over a higher pool. However people differ in this regard and in no CP you may need a bigger stamina pool on magicka characters, due to the increased break free cost. Still, I don't really think Triune is the way to go in most builds.

Harmony: There is something called a Harmony bomber necro, but I think this was nerfed. Other than that, no use in PvP.

Healthy: Not a bad choice, since there is a high health meta going on with some builds relying on health-based heals, such as Arctic Blast. I'm not sure I'd ever transmute jewelry to healthy, but it's the default for heavy sets and may suit your build.

Bloodthirsty: I have not experimented with this in PvP. I'd go with Infused over Bloodthirsty, but I could be wrong.

Protective: Was overnerfed, therefore no longer used by most. Might make sense in an Alessian (werewolf) build.

Reasons to use weapon traits:

Sharpened: Probably your best choice for your offensive weapon these days. Penetration is highly valuable in PvP and this was buffed to where it outperforms Nirnhoned by a good bit. Also one of the few ways to buff proc damage, which Nirnhoned does not.

Defending: As good as Sharpened is on your front bar, Defending is on the back bar. A good way to bump your resistances.

Nirnhoned: The compromise. Boosts your heals (Rally), which Sharpened does not. Also increases your damage, but not as much as Sharpened. People who want to compromise tend to run Nirnhoned Mauls.

Infused: This has many uses. The more aggressive choice for the back bar weapon, particularly bows. People run the +452 weapon damage enchant. Light attack / Poison Injection activates the enchant. A second use for this trait is that it is bursty damage and burst kills in PvP. Fire, Shock and Disease enchants are popular on the front bar. Some people combine this with the Torug's Pact set. Personally I like an Infused Magic Damage / Return Health enchant on the front bar for magicka builds that lack healing. Beware: This goes to waste, if you experiment with poisons.

Charged: I've seen sorc use this for the increased chance to hit people with status effects. May be good with Force Shock. I'm not entirely sure, since I have not experimented with it.

Powered: I've used it on a resto staff and it makes sense for a healer, I guess. Overall I think Defending is better and at least one healer told me Precise is better (in CP), but that may be wrong.

Precise: An alternative to Powered for healers. May be useful for better Crit Surge uptime on sorc. Overall I don't think this is a good trait for PvP. Nightblades and templars have crit passives that may make this useful in CP and with the Shadow mundus, but unless you fancy a lot of testing / theorycrafting, I would not use it.

Decisive: A speciality trait. There are some builds that go for all out ulti-gen. May be useful for DKs, werewolves (to get to the ultimate) and sorcs that are built to pump out Negates in group play.

Training: Absolutely no use in PvP. If you are in the low-level campaign, you probably want to stay there and not level your character, right?

It might be wishful thinking on my part but I am lazy as to switch between PvE and PvP gears. So is there something "balanced" so that I can do both PvP and PvE/Dungeon/Trial without having to constantly switch between gears? If not, that's ok.

Yes, it is wishful thinking. However I do use many of my characters in both PvP and PvE with merely gear and skill changes and no CP nor mundus change.

You underestimate divine's use. It's not just a ganker's trait.
Divine can also boost your survivability. On Magsorc with the Mage, it results in roughly 200 more conjured ward shield strenght in no cp. Even more in cp.

When used with the Lady, which is a popular choice, you can get some universal resistance.
I prefer these general tanky boosts to either resistance or active defense over situational crit resistance. Almost nobody deals dangerous amounts of crit right now, with proc sets being the main source of damage for most people. I would always favor other means over crit resistance that is useless against everything that is not a nightblade or stamsorc.

And even against those, a few percent crit resistance will seldom make a difference between life or death.

Elo106

fred4 wrote: »

Charged: I've seen sorc use this for the increased chance to hit people with status effects. May be good with Force Shock. I'm not entirely sure, since I have not experimented with it.

Charged is great for MagDK front bar, inflicting burning nets you 500 Magicka through Combustion passive which helps with sustain.

fred4

Dracane wrote: »

You underestimate divine's use. It's not just a ganker's trait.
Divine can also boost your survivability. On Magsorc with the Mage, it results in roughly 200 more conjured ward shield strenght in no cp. Even more in cp.

When used with the Lady, which is a popular choice, you can get some universal resistance.

This is interesting and those are valid points, especially since resistance is more effective the more of it you stack. The reason I personally don't go for that is that I like sustain and, with Serpent and Atro buffed to 310, those mundus stones are now more effective than others. Other mundus stones are the strength of approx. 1.84 times an armor set line. Serpent and Atro are 2.4 times the strength. Of course in making that argument I omit that part of your armor is countered by penetration, which makes adding to the remaining armor a lot more effective than it would seem. Having less than 15K or even 20K, the armor might as well not exist. Having more than 20K and you start to feel ever more tanky.

That said, personally I am the sort of player for whom sustain is more important. For example I feel more comfortable on my magplar with added stamina sustain at the expense of armor. Give me Amber Plasm over a defensive heavy armor set (other than Eternal Vigor, which also wear) any day, basically. I have no idea whether that is objectively more effective, but it feels more fun to play and was certainly more effective in the last duel I had, for my playstyle. I much prefer light armor on templar. The damage hit you take in heavy is very noticeable on that class in CP. I even tried Malacath in heavy, albeit not on a proc build. It was no contest. Light with good stamina sustain felt like better damage and more defensively sound.

That said, part 2: I don't strive to be a really competitive player anymore. If it took a major change of playstyle to be one, I wouldn't do it nor would I know where to start, if I'm honest. I have a playstyle that I like and am building towards that.

Dracane

fred4 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

You underestimate divine's use. It's not just a ganker's trait.
Divine can also boost your survivability. On Magsorc with the Mage, it results in roughly 200 more conjured ward shield strenght in no cp. Even more in cp.

When used with the Lady, which is a popular choice, you can get some universal resistance.

This is interesting and those are valid points, especially since resistance is more effective the more of it you stack. The reason I personally don't go for that is that I like sustain and, with Serpent and Atro buffed to 310, those mundus stones are now more effective than others. Other mundus stones are the strength of approx. 1.84 times an armor set line. Serpent and Atro are 2.4 times the strength. Of course in making that argument I omit that part of your armor is countered by penetration, which makes adding to the remaining armor a lot more effective than it would seem. Having less than 15K or even 20K, the armor might as well not exist. Having more than 20K and you start to feel ever more tanky.

That said, personally I am the sort of player for whom sustain is more important. For example I feel more comfortable on my magplar with added stamina sustain at the expense of armor. Give me Amber Plasm over a defensive heavy armor set (other than Eternal Vigor, which also wear) any day, basically. I have no idea whether that is objectively more effective, but it feels more fun to play and was certainly more effective in the last duel I had, for my playstyle. I much prefer light armor on templar. The damage hit you take in heavy is very noticeable on that class in CP. I even tried Malacath in heavy, albeit not on a proc build. It was no contest. Light with good stamina sustain felt like better damage and more defensively sound.

That said, part 2: I don't strive to be a really competitive player anymore. If it took a major change of playstyle to be one, I wouldn't do it nor would I know where to start, if I'm honest. I have a playstyle that I like and am building towards that.

Sustain does feel better and when played well, wins in the end.
Atronach and Serpent are very hard to beat.

I just prefer having the necessary amount of tankiness so I can compensate the rest with mobility and otherwise prefer to keep fights short by investing a alot into damage rather than sustain and thus, prolonged fights.
This works very well most of the time. Though I sometimes wish I had more magicka recovery.

I go with lover, infused and divines.