Is glass cannon just the way to go now?

Kharner

I recently started playing again, for reference the last time I played pvp seriously was during Greymoor. This is also my first time pvping with the new CP system, and it just feels like I die instantly now. I never got insta-gibbed/ganked using my same build in Greymoor unless it was by a nightblade that was truly geared out to gank, and even then it was rare. I'm talking like 20k + resists, 2000+ crit resist, 27k health. I guess by todays standards this is probably too low? The amount of defense lost with the new CP system is insane, and I am really feeling it.

I'm re-adjusting my build, and I'm at a point now where it doesn't even make sense to try to make defensive gear decisions unless you go all-in on defense. Do I just embrace the insta-gib meta and go double damage sets?

I feel like this is the worst pvp has ever felt.

Vevvev

I balance the two, and with proper dodge rolls, blocks, and usage of defensive abilities you can be quite durable while still being "glassy". One possibility is running vampire for the stage 3 Undeath passive with a high self healing build to turn all your high offensive power into high healing throughout the duration of the conflict. Helps my magDK survive a lot of punishment while only having the Clever Alchemist set equipped for any kind of health bonus outside the Sugar Skulls food.

Kharner

Vevvev wrote: »

I balance the two, and with proper dodge rolls, blocks, and usage of defensive abilities you can be quite durable while still being "glassy". One possibility is running vampire for the stage 3 Undeath passive with a high self healing build to turn all your high offensive power into high healing throughout the duration of the conflict. Helps my magDK survive a lot of punishment while only having the Clever Alchemist set equipped for any kind of health bonus outside the Sugar Skulls food.

Not trying to be rude, but I'm not a newb, I know how to dodge, and block. You cant dodge everything though, and when I do get it hit, it is MUCH harder than it has ever been since I can remember. The thing that prompted me to make this post was just getting hit by an 18k dawnbreaker a few minutes ago. I cant remember ever getting hit that hard by any ability, even leap. Again with 20k resists, and 2100 crit resist, it hit me for 18k damage.

Grimlok_S

Kharner wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I balance the two, and with proper dodge rolls, blocks, and usage of defensive abilities you can be quite durable while still being "glassy". One possibility is running vampire for the stage 3 Undeath passive with a high self healing build to turn all your high offensive power into high healing throughout the duration of the conflict. Helps my magDK survive a lot of punishment while only having the Clever Alchemist set equipped for any kind of health bonus outside the Sugar Skulls food.

Not trying to be rude, but I'm not a newb, I know how to dodge, and block. You cant dodge everything though, and when I do get it hit, it is MUCH harder than it has ever been since I can remember. The thing that prompted me to make this post was just getting hit by an 18k dawnbreaker a few minutes ago. I cant remember ever getting hit that hard by any ability, even leap. Again with 20k resists, and 2100 crit resist, it hit me for 18k damage.

You might as well not be wearing armor at all with the kind of pen we have access to these days. Stuhn's on my DK nets me pretty close to that 20k once you add it all up. Major Fracture, Sharp Maul, pen CP, etc.

Noctus

Kharner wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I balance the two, and with proper dodge rolls, blocks, and usage of defensive abilities you can be quite durable while still being "glassy". One possibility is running vampire for the stage 3 Undeath passive with a high self healing build to turn all your high offensive power into high healing throughout the duration of the conflict. Helps my magDK survive a lot of punishment while only having the Clever Alchemist set equipped for any kind of health bonus outside the Sugar Skulls food.

Not trying to be rude, but I'm not a newb, I know how to dodge, and block. You cant dodge everything though, and when I do get it hit, it is MUCH harder than it has ever been since I can remember. The thing that prompted me to make this post was just getting hit by an 18k dawnbreaker a few minutes ago. I cant remember ever getting hit that hard by any ability, even leap. Again with 20k resists, and 2100 crit resist, it hit me for 18k damage.

i rly dont know how cp pvp is right now but in no cp u can tank multiple ppl and still do good dmg. i personally play all classes but mainly magblade and sorc. from my experience warden is the way to go right now comparing all my characters. specifically stamwarden feels great ... becouse its overtuned .... 2nd place id give templar

like sometimes im just walking around letting the stamblade try to burst me completely ignore the guy.
most builds wont work as they were prepatch u need to change and adapt but i confirm tankiness is there just need the right build. have fun sinking another million into gear

gariondavey

Most of my characters are pretty glass cannon. I rely on speed, los, dodges rolls to survive. Some characters I put attributes into hp instead of stam or mag but still play in light or medium

Sylosi

This game doesn't have glass cannons.

fred4

Kharner wrote: »

I recently started playing again, for reference the last time I played pvp seriously was during Greymoor. This is also my first time pvping with the new CP system, and it just feels like I die instantly now. I never got insta-gibbed/ganked using my same build in Greymoor unless it was by a nightblade that was truly geared out to gank, and even then it was rare. I'm talking like 20k + resists, 2000+ crit resist, 27k health. I guess by todays standards this is probably too low? The amount of defense lost with the new CP system is insane, and I am really feeling it.

I'm re-adjusting my build, and I'm at a point now where it doesn't even make sense to try to make defensive gear decisions unless you go all-in on defense. Do I just embrace the insta-gib meta and go double damage sets?

I feel like this is the worst pvp has ever felt.

What class are we talking about? Anyway, we're all feeling it.

Regardless of tank meta complaints in the past, I am coming to believe that tank metas are perpetuated by players, not by ZOS. The first weeks of Flames of Ambition felt like everyone was really squishy, but then people adjusted. No one likes being that squishy and I think maybe Dizzying Swing being meta and that skill being a channel during which you can't block is partially to blame for that. You need a certain amount of tankiness to make it work.

I'm not sure how much scope remains for being tankier this time around. I swapped Eternal Vigor out for Pariah on my stamsorc and split my blue CP slottables evenly between two +10% damage stars and two +10% defense stars, e.g. the single target and AOE ones. If you invest into those, you IMO need both. Incap, Dizzy and Surprise Attack are single target. Leap, Dawnbreaker, Subterranean and Vateshran 2H are AOE. I still feel somewhat squishy, but Pariah is an improvement. I think I have up to 37K resistances on my back bar (being a Nord) and I am wearing all Impen. Still medium armor. 3K crit resistance would be nice, but you can't have everything. Crit chance is nerfed a lot, but Acuity is popular. I see that blue glow a fair bit.

If you are a nightblade, building a glass cannon is a good option, I'm sure. Both bombers (magblades) and single-target stamblade gankers are strong, although an alert blocking / rolling player may still completely negate your burst. I personally still run a balanced build on my magblade with a Juggernaut back bar. It's a decent safety net. The cooldown isn't that much of an issue on a nightblade who controls the fight with cloak. There is also a new blue CP star giving you a somewhat decent shield when you heal at low health every 30 seconds. I probably wouldn't recommend it on any other class, but on a nightblade it can help you get safely into cloak. It reinforces your Healing Ward.

I feel a bit stumped on my stam DK. I think stam DK tankiness has been going downhill for a while, leaning on health regen, as stamsorc traditionally has, but health regen is nerfed. Pariah + Streak / BoL feels adequate, but DK is the interesting case. I have taken some insane Leap / Vateshran 2H / Execute combos that have insta-killed me from range. This was in IC. The guy was good in a duel too, though maybe not very tanky in a 1vX. Maybe going damage on stam DK is the thing to do.

As I don't play warden or necro, I can't say how those classes are faring. On magplar your defense should probably be Mist Form, as ever. I've certainly seen some very tanky templars 2vXing in IC last patch, although their damage was not high.

EDIT: OK, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Playing my stam DK right now and it's OK. Pretty tanky. Vateshran 2H front bar. Pariah back bar. 35K both resists (buffed) on back bar, before Pariah proc. So 40K+ in total. Medium armor. This is in CP. 5K weapon damage with Continuous before Balorgh. 2.17K unbuffed stam regen. Not the hardest hitting build in the world, but quite tanky. So, in case you're wondering, I use Physical Resistance + stam + health potions and, yeah, I use Stone Giant as a spammable. This is how to get the Physical Resistance up on DK (which has more Spell Resist naturally). If you go with Dizzying, as most people do, it becomes harder to use that potion, because you want just slightly better mag sustain for the Minor Brutality from Fragmented Shield. I run Shuffle instead of that. My final set, right now, is Coward's Gear. I just like speed and that set's 5 piece has some pretty decent stam regen as of late, so I'm double-barring it for now. This is not a recommendation. This is just what I currently run.

rbfrgsp

Previous patch, I could take down majority of players <24k health with a 3 hit gank combo. I would be tempted to try on any target 28k or below.

This patch, those numbers have definitely gone up. I can now tear players 32-34k hp. Not getting them most of the time, but 27k is definitely now marking you out as a low survivability target.

master_vanargand

I use Glass Cannon in CP Cyrodiil and BGs.
But it's easy to survive.

What I can say is that "halfway is not good".
In other words, just making traits 7 Impenetrable is halfway.
If you invest in Resist, you should invest as much as you can.

Armor Resist + Critical Resist + Block or Damage Shield or Healing = Survive.

If you can't do that, 7 Impenetrable doesn't make sense.
Another road is 7 Well-Fitted.

Roll Dodge + Moving Speed + Player Skill = Survive.

If you decide on a survival strategy, invest in it with all your might.
And don't forget that "attack is the best defense".
I enjoy PvP the best I've ever had.

Waffennacht

30k health is now pretty standard
20k resistance is too low to be of much use against a lot of builds (not that I'd recommend forgoing it) penetration is a heavy favorite and many builds are running anything from 10k penetration to 28k. No damage dealer is running less. Balorgh is very common and alone can give up to 11.5k penetration.
Impen is less of a fail safe as malacath is still popular, but still cant forgo impen if u wanna be defensive.

Heals are a bigger part of survivability now that ZoS gave an additional 1k wpn and spell damage.
Major protection etc have been gutted, the only really form of use i see with these buffs comes from Daedric trickery and that's because u can stack a few of them.

If you're not a stage 3 vamp you're losing a lot of survivability on this meta. They pwned health regen. Especially if you have access to imperial theres not much of a downside for being s3 vamp anymore. Its almost mandatory.

Speed is a necessity unless you're running an iron blood type build.

Just some meta changes that someone may not be aware of
Oh and life steal is very valuable now

fred4

master_vanargand wrote: »

And don't forget that "attack is the best defense".

A stamblade once told me that, when my only character was a stam DK. It was not good advice for me at the time. On a stam DK you IMO have to be somewhat patient as you wait for the right moment to leap and counterpunch.

Seriously, though, I agree. You have to build towards your strengths. This is especially true for armor as there are various factors that amount to "the more you stack it, the more valuable the additional armor becomes". Note: Armor. Not other forms of mitigation in this case, but specifically armor. This is both due to the high amounts of penetration in PvP and due to how mitigation math is calculated.

It's also true for speed. Speed is no good if you don't stack a lot of it. You need to be faster than your opponent. If you are the same speed, because you both stacked some, it's merely even-steven. I'll make an exception for stamsorc, which has both Streak and Minor Expedition. For other characters, esepcially nightblades, every additional piece of Swift can be felt. It is not the only conceivable defense. Shadow Image and higher damage is the obvious alternative to avoid the sacrifice you make for speed, but if you go for speed, the more the better.

Xargas13

I'm running only DPS sets plus malacath. 3 light the rest is heavy, and I have to say I'm doing well for the most part, my trick is block often and heal often. Some very tanky players can get me down, but for the most part I kill pretty fast and don't have many deaths. Playing magcro + vampire, so I'm a bit tanky, if focused by a team though, I die pretty fast. Never been into defensive sets as I prefer high damage to more defense, live on the edge so to speak

EDIT: I'm not even using impen stat at the moment, on 2 pieces of light I have reduced block cost and the rest is for increased effect of mundus for spell penetration.

Sandman929

I opt for percent mitigation over Armor lately, to a point, because of diminishing returns. Penetration is just so high in Blackwood it seems like you're better off with something like Buffer of the Swift versus Pariah. Damage being as high as it is, I think you need one defensive set at least if you plan on having a chance to in anything larger than a 1v1.
Well-fitted is quite strong as well...I wish we'd gotten Gaze of Sithis 1.0, but even 2.0 with a lot of well-fitted can work well defensively.

divnyi

fred4 wrote: »

A stamblade once told me that, when my only character was a stam DK. It was not good advice for me at the time. On a stam DK you IMO have to be somewhat patient as you wait for the right moment to leap and counterpunch.

Depends on type of DK. I roll dot DK with maelstrom DW and masters DW on 30k body with 7x well-fitted (no armor pumps because would be pen'd out anyway) and the best thing I can do is to precast several dots earlier than opponent starts his combo on me. When I'll be healing, they will be taking dot ticks, and I will go from defence to counter-offence. Without dots, they will just pressure me to death.

ResidentContrarian

No, but glass cannon and % reduction + healing is the way to go.

divnyi

Kharner wrote: »

This is also my first time pvping with the new CP system, and it just feels like I die instantly now.

How much defensive pips you have in blue?

Vevvev

Kharner wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I balance the two, and with proper dodge rolls, blocks, and usage of defensive abilities you can be quite durable while still being "glassy". One possibility is running vampire for the stage 3 Undeath passive with a high self healing build to turn all your high offensive power into high healing throughout the duration of the conflict. Helps my magDK survive a lot of punishment while only having the Clever Alchemist set equipped for any kind of health bonus outside the Sugar Skulls food.

Not trying to be rude, but I'm not a newb, I know how to dodge, and block. You cant dodge everything though, and when I do get it hit, it is MUCH harder than it has ever been since I can remember. The thing that prompted me to make this post was just getting hit by an 18k dawnbreaker a few minutes ago. I cant remember ever getting hit that hard by any ability, even leap. Again with 20k resists, and 2100 crit resist, it hit me for 18k damage.

Indeed, which is why I mentioned defensive abilities. Mistform is a great way to absorb an attack as well as some ultimates like Magma Armor, Blood Scion, and the Resto staff ultimate. Also you never dodge roll AoE attacks, but instead you block them. With conal attacks like Engulfing Flame and Dawnbreaker if you know they have access to it you dodge roll towards them instead of away from them. Reason being is the area to get hit gets smaller the closer you get to them, and with the positional desyncs thanks to ZOS's server you want to be fighting as close to someone as you can when engaging in melee to increase your chances of your enemy missing.

DrSlaughtr

A ridiculous amount of people are running gaze of sithis to let them also run two damage sets. Stupid amount of health, recovery and armor. The drawback? Block doesn't work. Oh no. Most of these people don't block anyway.

divnyi

TheEndBringer wrote: »

A ridiculous amount of people are running gaze of sithis to let them also run two damage sets. Stupid amount of health, recovery and armor. The drawback? Block doesn't work. Oh no. Most of these people don't block anyway.

Imagine they wanted to give twice the amount of stats initially.

DrSlaughtr

divnyi wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

A ridiculous amount of people are running gaze of sithis to let them also run two damage sets. Stupid amount of health, recovery and armor. The drawback? Block doesn't work. Oh no. Most of these people don't block anyway.

Imagine they wanted to give twice the amount of stats initially.

YUP

Fawn4287

Groups of Wardens, necros and DKs in heavy with 35k health with alchemist and malacath will say the polar opposite. Glassy is ok on something with good escape and why streak and cloak spammers happily wear 3 damage sets. Unless on some sort of bomber building tanky and running as many HOTs as possible is the meta.

Hexquisite

I would say that in m 6 years of pvping, this is one of the most Trolliest Metas in open world CP.
I have 30K resists and 34 K health, 2800 to 3300 Crit resist, and there are people out there who can kill me from stealth in a second without me having a chance to react---in the past it was rare that I got ganked, in fact I usually could turn around and kill the ganker. And there isnt much one can do against these builds if they want to kill you, esp in lag.

ThePianist

I’ll rank good defensive sets from budget to expensive.

Budget, Fortified Brass.

Cost a bit more, Heavy Impreg armor (it gives crit resist and you can run 7 well fitted).

Expensive, Buffer of the Swift or Pariah.

In prime time hours, I put on vicious death and acuity on my magblade. During low population hours, I put on pariah and acuity. Vampire undeath passive and Pariah is amazing. Magblade is more fun than stamblade but it’s still got the worst sustain. That’s why I use acuity, cross my fingers that I burst them down before I run out of resources while potion is still on cooldown.

But yeah, there is a huge advantage for being vamp this patch.

DrSlaughtr

All the cool dps are running Sithis.

Pauwer

Yeh, my experience is not to wear any defensive sets now. Just go all damage. Those defensive sets will not keep you alive. Maybe it is because i fell like there is always a full group against the solo me. But being tanky doesnt work now compared to being full damage. Just kill all

Kharner

Pauwer wrote: »

Yeh, my experience is not to wear any defensive sets now. Just go all damage. Those defensive sets will not keep you alive. Maybe it is because i fell like there is always a full group against the solo me. But being tanky doesnt work now compared to being full damage. Just kill all

I redid my build and went fully offensive sets and its been working pretty well. I still run 2800 impen to help mitigate some ganking, but going fully offensive sets has made a big difference.

Basically kill or be killed. Unless your a warden or stamcro, you get to brawl it out still.

divnyi

It's fun that we have both thread that whines about glass cannons and thread that whines about ppl being so tanky nobody can die.

LightYagami

Pauwer wrote: »

Yeh, my experience is not to wear any defensive sets now. Just go all damage. Those defensive sets will not keep you alive. Maybe it is because i fell like there is always a full group against the solo me. But being tanky doesnt work now compared to being full damage. Just kill all

When soloing in Cyrodiil, my experience is the same. If I run solo, I'm likely targeted by a group of enemies. Wearing defensive sets usually only Delay my death... I'd rather go offensive and at least kill a few of them before I'm dead.

(Sometimes I go defensive but most of the time I prefer offensive builds)

angelofdeath333

We lost alot of mitigation from CP with the new CP system. Physical/spell is capped at 2%, and atleast 10% was pretty much standard in CP 1.0. its also Hard to fit the star that reduces dmg over time. Ironclad is also capped at 10% (is it ironclad in CP 2.0? The star that reduces direct single taget dmg?). So there you have it!

Alucardo

TheEndBringer wrote: »

A ridiculous amount of people are running gaze of sithis to let them also run two damage sets. Stupid amount of health, recovery and armor. The drawback? Block doesn't work. Oh no. Most of these people don't block anyway.

It's like 3.5k health or something and 4k armor. Ideally you'd want to run an additional defensive set because that is just not enough. I run Sithis and Pariah, and still take 6-7k surprise attacks.