How to build a PvE-PvP hybrid? (total beginner with PvP)

Tesman85 · February 2021

I have done dailies both in Imperial City and Cyrodiil during this event. At first I was rather shocked, as I kept getting killed over and over by gankers in IC. I almost swore never to try PvP again. After the first rage subsided and I learned some basic principles, I started to think that PvP could be fun after all.

The only problem is that I don't really have the time (or patience) to level up a character from ground up just for PvP as I'm a solo PvEr at heart and am going to do mostly that anyway. So I'm planning to train a few of my characters for PvP also. First up would be a CP 50-something dragonknight. I can't post her exact stats (as the login problem still persists), but the points are roughly in the ratio of 5 to Magicka, 3 to Health, 2 to Stamina. Is this at all sensible, seeing that I use a combination of magicka (class skills) and stamina (weapon skills) abilities?

Another question is gear. What craftable sets are best for PvP? I don't have time to farm for the rare PvP sets in dungeons and my gold income is something like 100 000 a week, so the best gear is practically unavailable. That's why I'll have to make do with what my crafter can produce. ATM she is wearing a combination of Ashen Grip and Death's Wind sets.

Lastly, what skills should be chosen? This far I have tried in my sword-and-board bar a combination of: 1. Puncture, 2. Petrify, 3. Deep slash, 4. Fiery Breath, 5. Obsidian Shield, ultimate Dragon Leap. Is this even close? I am thinking of replacing Obsidian Shield with Vigor, at least.

My goal is to be able to be as survivable as possible while still doing decent damage. I'm not aiming to be the best of the best, only to be able to participate in sieges in a worthwhile way and also occasionally be able to kill somebody in 1 vs 1 scenario.

Also, is the above-mentioned goal even realistic with my time constraints? How long it takes to develop into a half-way decent PvPer? I am able to play something like 10-15 hours a week.

ForzaRammer · February 2021

Pve and pvp hybrid simply doesn’t work

Tesman85 · February 2021

ForzaRammer wrote: »

Pve and pvp hybrid simply doesn’t work

Really, why? Is the required stat distribution then so different? I have the storage space for separate PvP and PvE sets, so that's not a problem. Also, I can acquire enough skill points relatively quickly to get the required abilities by hunting skyshards while doing surveys or resource farming runs. So what is the stumbling block, exactly?

NupidStoob · February 2021

Easiest way would be to play no CP PvP so you don't have to change those. Depending on build you also don't need to change mundus. All you need to do then is change your gear and skills. With an addon like dressing room that's done in a second. Dedicated PvP characters do make life a lot easier though.

Regarding builds you normally want to gravitate towards either magicka or stamina especially for PvE. In PvP hybrid builds work, but you need a lot of experience to make them work properly. For your stats you would normally dump either all into stamina or magicka, if you lack health/other resource as a result on your pvp build you can fix that easily with enchants which is more flexible.

With gear I sadly can't help you as I haven't played in a while.

I think 10-15 hrs a week is enough to become decent at pvp if you put some effort into learning it. Challenging yourself is usually the most effective way to get better quickly. Dueling against better players that don't mind to give some feedback for example or trying to solo in Cyrodiil. Battlegrounds are also a good place to learn as you fight constantly. Zergsurfing won't teach you much, but can be fun if you just want to play more casually. Lastly there is always the option to join a guild which in most cases is the easiest way to get into it.

Tesman85 · February 2021

NupidStoob wrote: »

Easiest way would be to play no CP PvP so you don't have to change those. Depending on build you also don't need to change mundus. All you need to do then is change your gear and skills. With an addon like dressing room that's done in a second. Dedicated PvP characters do make life a lot easier though.

Regarding builds you normally want to gravitate towards either magicka or stamina especially for PvE. In PvP hybrid builds work, but you need a lot of experience to make them work properly. For your stats you would normally dump either all into stamina or magicka, if you lack health/other resource as a result on your pvp build you can fix that easily with enchants which is more flexible.

With gear I sadly can't help you as I haven't played in a while.

I think 10-15 hrs a week is enough to become decent at pvp if you put some effort into learning it. Challenging yourself is usually the most effective way to get better quickly. Dueling against better players that don't mind to give some feedback for example or trying to solo in Cyrodiil. Battlegrounds are also a good place to learn as you fight constantly. Zergsurfing won't teach you much, but can be fun if you just want to play more casually. Lastly there is always the option to join a guild which in most cases is the easiest way to get into it.

Thanks for the tips! So this should be doable with maybe a stat rededication and hunting for skyshards for additional skill points.

The most baffling thing for me in PvP seems to be my low survivability. My character is supposed to be tanky, and yet even in all health-enchanted impenetrable-trait blue/purple armor (and the extra points in health, AND buffed with a crown meal) I was killed in seconds at first. Is there still a further way to ensure keeping alive, besides self-heals? Maybe some way to drive armor rating still higher? After all, if I am to learn I must be able to do something other than die instantly.

Fortunately the most basic principles seem to be easy to learn. After all, with an hour or two's research and wandering in IC I got to a point where I was able to barely survive an initial onslaught from a ganker and 50 % of the time drive them away to search for easier prey. But against a more determined player I'm toast in under a minute, and killing them seems impossible as I'm not able to do enough damage fast enough. So something must be done.

Maybe I should try no-CP Battlegrounds and duels to get some easy-ish initial training.

ForzaRammer · February 2021

Tesman85 wrote: »

ForzaRammer wrote: »

Pve and pvp hybrid simply doesn’t work

Really, why? Is the required stat distribution then so different? I have the storage space for separate PvP and PvE sets, so that's not a problem. Also, I can acquire enough skill points relatively quickly to get the required abilities by hunting skyshards while doing surveys or resource farming runs. So what is the stumbling block, exactly?

If you don’t mind swapping gears and cp all the time, then it works.

ccfeeling · February 2021

Actually I use pve build in pvp

Not so bad.

alainjbrennanb16_ESO · February 2021

Tesman85 wrote: »

I have done dailies both in Imperial City and Cyrodiil during this event. At first I was rather shocked, as I kept getting killed over and over by gankers in IC. I almost swore never to try PvP again. After the first rage subsided and I learned some basic principles, I started to think that PvP could be fun after all.

The only problem is that I don't really have the time (or patience) to level up a character from ground up just for PvP as I'm a solo PvEr at heart and am going to do mostly that anyway. So I'm planning to train a few of my characters for PvP also. First up would be a CP 50-something dragonknight. I can't post her exact stats (as the login problem still persists), but the points are roughly in the ratio of 5 to Magicka, 3 to Health, 2 to Stamina. Is this at all sensible, seeing that I use a combination of magicka (class skills) and stamina (weapon skills) abilities?

Another question is gear. What craftable sets are best for PvP? I don't have time to farm for the rare PvP sets in dungeons and my gold income is something like 100 000 a week, so the best gear is practically unavailable. That's why I'll have to make do with what my crafter can produce. ATM she is wearing a combination of Ashen Grip and Death's Wind sets.

Lastly, what skills should be chosen? This far I have tried in my sword-and-board bar a combination of: 1. Puncture, 2. Petrify, 3. Deep slash, 4. Fiery Breath, 5. Obsidian Shield, ultimate Dragon Leap. Is this even close? I am thinking of replacing Obsidian Shield with Vigor, at least.

My goal is to be able to be as survivable as possible while still doing decent damage. I'm not aiming to be the best of the best, only to be able to participate in sieges in a worthwhile way and also occasionally be able to kill somebody in 1 vs 1 scenario.

Also, is the above-mentioned goal even realistic with my time constraints? How long it takes to develop into a half-way decent PvPer? I am able to play something like 10-15 hours a week.

What your after can only work when you understand pvp, how to move, where not to be and that can take a while, but saying that my main character both pve's and pvp's, you need to understand what skills work better in pvp compared to pve, certain skills from pve will not work in pvp, as unlike npc's the player never stands still or has a set pattern. Swapping out skills and gear sets will work to a degree, but movement is more key. High damage is crit is not always best in pvp, personal i run 28% crit and 2k spell damage. My best piece of advice is to use gear sets you currently use in pve and get some more and put them to impen and have body gear in heavy armour, as you slowly get use to pvp try swapping out the impen for better traits/etc to how you play

Scardan · February 2021

Just make solo build. You need something for survivability, something for sustain, heals and damage dealing staff.

BXR_Lonestar · February 2021

I tried this with a stamplar a long time ago and I'm going to be honest with you: unless you want to spend a lot of gold resetting your champion points for PVE or PVP - whichever area of the game you are entering, using the same build for PVE as you do in PVP simply doesn't work.

Kalik_Gold · February 2021

Crafting sets are viable in PvP - New Moon, Ancient Dragonguard, Stuhns... and even a few proc sets.
https://eso-sets.com/sets/type/craftable

I would advise making One crafted set, one Overland or PvP set, and start buying Monster/helms and shoulders from the Golden vendor on weekends. This is the route I went when I began..

I am in no means a top tier PvPer but I have fun, and can hold my own in CP (Cyro/IC)... BGs are not my cup of tea.

etchedpixels · February 2021

For battlegrounds and learning CP doesn't matter and the under 50 battlegrounds level fairly fast, get you AP and get your assault/support skill line levelled pretty quickly. I'd level a new toon that way to be honest. level 50 battlegrounds is a bit of a jump - all of a sudden it's hardcore players in precision tuned gear, poisons, monster sets and the like.

For the event I had reasonable success with my magsorc (on the usual 10 health rest magicka ratio) in under 50's just by switching chest/legs to two pieces of impenetrable heavy trainee gear (which is probably best in slot for 2 pieces of gear until you get to CP 160 and can wear monster helms), plus my normal mother's sorrow and some mad tinkerer to get people on the floor. At that point the main problems were not the gear but my playing skill 8)

The CP side of things there isn't IMHO any point worrying about right now. All the CP stuff is going to change and from the look of it so far it may actually make running a combo PVE/PVP character a lot easier.

Tesman85 · February 2021

Thanks for suggestions, everyone! You have been very helpful.

I finally managed to log in and took a look at my character's stats. Attributes (buffed by a crown meal and mostly health enchantments): Magicka 18257, Health 30791 (!), Stamina 16351. When comparing to two Alcast magicka dragonknight builds, this is severely underpowered in magicka department and overemphasizes health. My character's physical and spell resistances - about 25k and 23k - are actually higher than in those builds and crit resistance seems to be tolerable at 2190. So it looks like my low survivability is more due to lacking skill in evading attacks and lacking a self-heal ability than to attributes.

Spell damage is poor 1139 and weapon damage tolerable (?) 1570. That means I have to use spell damage jewelry and maybe gear sets.

Also, movement in battle is an issue. I find it hard to use abilities on keyboard and move at the same time, and that seems to be what got me killed me the most. It was either to maneuver and do almost no damage or stay put and die after getting some hits in. This, however, I remedied by ordering a gaming mouse with 10 buttons so that I can attack with mouse only.

As for CP, I plan mostly to play no-CP campaigns so that I don't have to worry about it. Skill and gear swapping is not an issue, fortunately. Actually, I don't really run veteran PvE content, being more a quester, so always running around in PvP-oriented gear shouldn't be that big a problem if I can't be bothered to change.

Gear-wise, I think I'll take a look at the sets mentioned by Kalik-Gold and craft some good combination.

So, now I have a workable plan: Make PvP gear, rededicate stats to something less health-skewed (should do this anyway), raise spell damage by some means, then just practice fighting. Let's see what happens.

Vevvev · February 2021

What I do is take a build I'd bring to a veteran arena, like Maelstrom and Vateshran, and then I change out the abilities to go from ground based AoEs to direct damage since players move. Also throw on a stun to lock people down.

LightYagami · February 2021

If you play Vet group PvE contents with others like Vet trials or Vet dungeons with a specific role, for example DD, your Vet group PvE build will be very squishy in PvP because those builds were made with assumption that you're playing with tanks and healers. You're likely be killed fast by PvPers because of defensive and self sustain problems.

If you play difficult solo PvE, for example VMA or soloing Vet group dungeons, your build won't be too bad at PvP, because you can basically manage your own sustain, healing, damage mitigation, damage output, mobility, etc.

Fawn4287 · February 2021

We are in the middle of the worst tank meta in years, may as well make a PvE tank and slot some extra heals to be a zerg troll heal tank in PvP, which is by far the easiest way to farm AP, or even better have werewolf back bared and you you can actually pump out some decent damage.

Tesman85 · February 2021

Fawn4287 wrote: »

We are in the middle of the worst tank meta in years, may as well make a PvE tank and slot some extra heals to be a zerg troll heal tank in PvP, which is by far the easiest way to farm AP, or even better have werewolf back bared and you you can actually pump out some decent damage.

Well, my dragonknight is already quite tankish. But it seems I should emphasize damage mitigation more than max health. Already in PvE my build sometimes suffers from a lack of magicka.

LightYagami wrote: »

If you play Vet group PvE contents with others like Vet trials or Vet dungeons with a specific role, for example DD, your Vet group PvE build will be very squishy in PvP because those builds were made with assumption that you're playing with tanks and healers. You're likely be killed fast by PvPers because of defensive and self sustain problems.

If you play difficult solo PvE, for example VMA or soloing Vet group dungeons, your build won't be too bad at PvP, because you can basically manage your own sustain, healing, damage mitigation, damage output, mobility, etc.

I actually have been 90 % of my time a solo quester, the rest of the time I've been doing dolmens and world bosses in ad hoc groups plus occasionally soloing in a few normal dungeons. So I have no experience in difficult veteran group PvE content. The upside of this is that from the start I have tried to build my character so that I can do everything alone. What I need is most seems to be more spell damage and some new way to absorb/mitigate lots of damage instead of the overloading health in stat point distribution.

Vevvev wrote: »

What I do is take a build I'd bring to a veteran arena, like Maelstrom and Vateshran, and then I change out the abilities to go from ground based AoEs to direct damage since players move. Also throw on a stun to lock people down.

Fortunately I already have a stun slotted (Petrify), and prefer "in front of you" AoE's to ground based. As for damage abilities, looks like the faster casting, the better. Even Fiery Breath seems to be too slow for PvP. Or then I just am too unskilled.

Goregrinder · February 2021

One main differentiating factor between PVE and PVP is that PVE has set variables, while PVP does not.

In PVE:

NPC's have set health bars.
NPC's have set resistances.
Bosses have set mechanics.
General dungeon mechanics have set timers.
NPC's cannot critically strike players.
NPC's have routines determined by algorithms.

In PVP:

Players may have different health from each other and are not static.
Player resistances are all different from each other and are dynamic.
Player's don't have boss mechanics..they move dynamically.
PVP doesn't really have timers other than match timers and flag timers.
Players can critically strike.
Player routines cannot always be predicted or anticipated.

Because of that, in a PVE environment you can input all of the known variables, input them into an algorithm, and end up with the most efficient way to do something. Most efficient way to deal high DPS. Most efficient way to heal. The most efficient way to tank. How much crit, resists, HP, resource pools, recovery etc are all fine tuned against a Boss with X amount of health, or trash mobs that die in x amount of seconds, etc.

That's not so easy in PVP. You will know a few things like the least amount of crit a player can have (1300), but you won't know how much impen another player might stack. You won't know how much recoveries, or crit chance or base DMg etc players will stack. You will never know, so you no longer have those variables to input into an algorithm.

So basically, the way you build for PVE is based on specific known factors which allow you to ignore certain stats (players never run impen in PVE). While building for PVP, you need to instead build the most "well rounded" build that can do well "most of the time" against "most" players you "think" you'll encounter.

TLDR: The end result is that most PVE builds will set you up for failure in a PVP scenario because they are built with specific variables in mind, while PVP as an environment will not share those same specific variables.