xskinzcity wrote: »

Umm yes i wear all purple set gear with enchants when i pvp no matter what level and definitely gold gear in cp campaigns. U should consider making your weapons purple at the bare minimum and 5 pc medium armor cause youre giving up weapon damage.

thank you. I didnt' know what other players were doing.

It's all about where you're aiming to play. I have stayed in BwB permanently for a variety of reasons, but especially that it's the most that my little MacBook can handle. When I vet a character out of the campaign they get deleted.

My gear is always either purple or gold. In BwB I really recommend going at least 5 pieces of a given armor type. Generally, go all seven of one type. We don't benefit from undaunted bonuses here and it's much more helpful to increase your sustainability in a no-Cp campaign.

I would really recommend running blue armor from item sets with blue enchants, then purple weapons. Run impen on your armor and generally speaking, sharpened on your weapons. Try and buy some cheap jewelry sets like warlock, etc and enchant those so that they are suited to your needs (damage vs sustain).

I'm probably one of the people hitting you or people like you for pretty heavy damage - but let me say that there are definitely a lot of easy steps that you can take to mitigate that. If you're AD on PC/NA feel free to message me and I'll run though some stuff with you.

Edited to say that if you see me and you're on another alliance feel free to message me too!

As a meanie who stays in BwB to slaughter innocent newbies in mass (actually mostly because vet camps are a zergy, laggy mess and it costs a [snip] of $$$ to get the gear), yes, people will use Impen, enchants and purple gear.

On my side, I tend to use purple weapons and blue armor, and standard non-set jewelry. I always use crafted sets, so I definitely have a bunch of extra stats compared to the average dude.

Now, on to optimizing your damage and survivability:

• Normalize your armor. 3H / 2M / 2L is not optimized for anything, choose 5 pieces of the same armor at least, otherwise you lose multiple bonuses (5M will give you extra weapon damage, 5L will give you spell penetration and critical chance...).
• The fact that you use Dark Flare leads me to think that you're a magicka build, but you mention jabs and wear medium as well. The damage of your abilities depends on what they require to cast: an ability that requires stamina will deal more damage if you got a bigger stamina pool and got more weapon damage, while abilities that require magicka will deal more based on your max magicka and spell damage.
• Already mentioned, but having enchanted armor is key, if you are a damage build with less than 30k in your main resource pool, you're doing it wrong. Using food (Health/magicka for magicka builds, Health/stamina for stamina ones) helps a lot to hit those numbers.
• Hybrids builds exist, but they'll never compete with specialized builds for pure damage. Stick to either stamina or magicka for now.
• Make sure to have a valid mundus stone, my suggestion would be to pick a sustain one (Serpent mundus for stamina recovery or Atronach for magicka recovery).
• Find a guild or have someone in another faction to test abilities out. Ask questions, try things out. it might not work, but you can still learn something.
• Impenetrable isn't as good as one might think in BwB, as it's a no CP campaign and critical hits are not that frequent, prefer Reinforced on chest or shield if you really need to be slightly tankier.
• Keep your buffs up in open world. Major Evasion, Major Ward and major Resolve will all help you survive, so make sure to always have those up.
• You have a lot of builds available online, look for those. You won't have access to everything, but knowing how other people would do it, and most importantly understand why they are making some choices is key to improving your own build. Learn, master a build, then make your own builds.
• Running with less than 20k HP in BwB is definitely not recommended (unless running a specialized gank build, or you're a mag sorc with shields unlocked, this kind of things).
• Use potions, you got some available for AP. Nuff said.

Could help more with the build itself if you could give all your abilities, stats and gear used if you got some time.

twistedmonk wrote: »

I have 3 heavy, 2 medium, 2 light, all green, same level gear, dual wield templar - jabs hit for 350 per hit (around 1k total, lot of times they miss a lot because its a channel POS and lag (even with 90+ fps, minimum video settings and 90 ping - lag is ridiculous, and crappy game engine), dark flare hits for maybe 2.5k

but I get hit with numerous abilities at a minimum of 3k, up to 5k with heavy attacks and 6-7k (concealed weapon, etc)

I mean are people gearing with purple gear + enchants + impen just for low level pvp?

I get CC (which takes like 3-4 seconds to break out of because of crappy game animation), then killed in 3-4 hits before I can even do anything.

blackwater used to be better fights when everybody had 30k health.

now it's just garbage, stun then dead.

A small portion of people in BwB go all out with gold gear and enchants... it's really just a waste of resources/gold since it's typically their experience that really sets them apart from the bulk of the population anyway.

Purple quality weapons will help your damage a great deal but using blue armor is more than enough (even green works fine with the right enchants/traits but blue upgrade materials are pretty cheap so just go for blue). If you're stamina-based go with 7m, 5m/2h, or 5h/2m... if you're magicka-based go with 7l, 5l/2h, or 5h/2l. If you happen to have the Undaunted passives unlocked then I guess you could try a 5/1/1 setup but that's pretty uncommon in BwB.

Asmael gave a lot of good advice. The only thing I disagree with is his thoughts on the Impenetrable trait in BwB. In my opinion, if you are getting killed in 3-4 shots then you should definitely consider using Impenetrable traits and also upping your max Health. In 5H/2L with all Impenetrable traits I almost never see an ability hit me for 5k+ and most abilities don't even come close.

twistedmonk wrote: »

Thank you all for the great tips. I wasn't properly prepared obviously! lol For the record I am magic build.

It was pretty frustrating being out damaged by such a large margin. I wasn't competitive at all.

@twistedmonk You are a Magicka Build? No wonder Jabs hit low for you. It is the stamina morph......

Adenoma wrote: »

@mcurley , I'm actually in total agreement about the relatively lower value of impen in BwB. Sure, impen on small pieces but given that 20% give or take a bit is a good crit percentage, it really lowers the value of that trait relative to vet PvP. I've got a fixation with heavy armor builds right now and I have fallen in love with reinforced.

I see. I have no point of reference regarding CP-enabled PvP because I've only played in BwB and AS. My comment was based on personal experience in BwB. I noticed a huge difference in how well I could survive going from 4pcs of impen to 7pcs... could just be coincidence, though.

How high are your resistances getting with your heavy build while using Reinforced on your big pcs?

I put all reinforced on medium armor and had about 11k resists.

As a former blackwater player i always ran 7 medium or 7 light on stamina or magicka builds respectively, all impen all purple from lvl 20-50 if you cant afford that then purple weapons and blue armor are enough to be hitting for a respectable amount.

Also never had any lag problems in blackwater myself either your on at super super populated times or you have a problem with your internet

I don't think battle leveling is a problem in BwB. I actually like it better. My current character is a lvl 17 hybrid argonian sorc who uses a bow. I am running 5 Night's Silence and 3 Seducer all white. Armor is divided between 3 medium and 4 light. I am squishy with only 20k health but I am manage. Most of my deaths are to siege or when outnumbered. Also, I'm not anywhere near the best, but I do have experience in PvP. My highest character is only at CP 78 and I have been playing for over a year. My point is that if I can make to top ten of leader board, with this build, then why are you complaining.

It might just be me, but I don't think I've been hit for over 6k unless it was siege. I'm sure there are people who hit like that in BWB, but I would think they are a minority. Also, if they can hit like that, then they should be squishy for the most part.

My build shouldn't hit hard because I have split magic and stamina attributes equally, but it's all about how you play. I focus on low health people and use Mages Wrath and Poison Injection. I can dodge roll 3 times in a row, which is enough to get behind your own lines. I also use Crystal Shards, but really only for the knockdown. I also use both sorc summons because they seem to distract players from killing me at least momentarily.

My build isn't optimized in any way and I'm okay with that. It suits how I want to play my character. If people hit you with high damage melee attacks, kill them from range, or CC them. Don't let them you. It makes sense to me to adapt your play style to counter what you think is a threat. Granted gear will help some, but you need to find a play style that works first.

ShadowMole25 wrote: »

I don't think battle leveling is a problem in BwB. I actually like it better. My current character is a lvl 17 hybrid argonian sorc who uses a bow. I am running 5 Night's Silence and 3 Seducer all white. Armor is divided between 3 medium and 4 light. I am squishy with only 20k health but I am manage. Most of my deaths are to siege or when outnumbered. Also, I'm not anywhere near the best, but I do have experience in PvP. My highest character is only at CP 78 and I have been playing for over a year. My point is that if I can make to top ten of leader board, with this build, then why are you complaining.

ShadowMole25 wrote: »

[snip]
My build shouldn't hit hard because I have split magic and stamina attributes equally, but it's all about how you play. I focus on low health people and use Mages Wrath and Poison Injection. I can dodge roll 3 times in a row, which is enough to get behind your own lines. I also use Crystal Shards, but really only for the knockdown. I also use both sorc summons because they seem to distract players from killing me at least momentarily.

My build isn't optimized in any way and I'm okay with that. It suits how I want to play my character. If people hit you with high damage melee attacks, kill them from range, or CC them. Don't let them you. It makes sense to me to adapt your play style to counter what you think is a threat. Granted gear will help some, but you need to find a play style that works first.

Well, sadly, hybrid builds meant for damage don't work anymore (I miss BwB 1.6 here... Fixed stats and all, only 1 set's 5th piece could work). These builds are not competitive, and you will absolutely get destroyed by anyone putting important efforts in making a strong build, whatever efforts you put into adapting your abilities, because you'll never get anywhere close to the stats you should have.

Don't have the screenshot right now, but I'm currently working on a stam DK with approximately the following stats:

40-42k~ maximum stamina (don't forget it's basically the same as about 4k extra weapon damage)
30k health
1600 stamina recovery
2k4 weapon damage unbuffed
22k physical/spell resist buffed
1500~ critical resistance

Add to this the Constitution passive with Black Rose on top from the heavy armor skill line, stamina potions, and there goes the "oomph!" for your sustain.

And I'm still missing a ring. And this is only blue armor and purple weapon. Non-set jewelry.

This kind of build is not realistically killable by the vast majority of BwB on their own (now I just need to unlock Vigor for it to be actually true). This is only to showcase how much gear actually matters, and also why I would prefer the old battle-leveling: because new players cannot realistically compete with it.

What's the biggest issue?

My build isn't optimized in any way and I'm okay with that. It suits how I want to play my character.

I absolutely get that people want to play how they want, but I'm blaming it on Zos for confusing the players here, as there is a pretty large difference between "play how you want" and "play unoptimized". You can absolutely optimize your gear (and I don't mean just putting everything into either stamina or magicka), and not only will it allow you to still "play as you want", it'll also allow you to play as you want while still being effective.

Contrary to popular belief, there isn't just 1 "meta" build for each class above all others, quite the contrary, the unusual builds have strengths and weaknesses that most people will not know about and can be used to your advantage. You can absolutely make your own build and change it to your need.

That said, if you want to stick to hybrid DPS builds (tank builds work fine as hybrid), you might want to check out Pelinal's Aptitude. You'll probably need someone to craft it for you, but heh.

Also, use food

Adenoma wrote: »

Because it sucks to play against people with 15k tooltip on their dizzying swing.

Gankblade: Heavy attack from stealth > Surprise attack > light attack > Incapaciting Strike = 35k+ damage in less than 2 seconds against the majority of BwB.

Leeching tank: AFK for 4 minutes, took 12 people (including 1 meatbag) to kill. No, I'm not joking on the AFK, the person was watching a movie.

Powerblade: Just your usual 70k+ magicka nightblade. Nah, the other stats are fine too.

Health regen DoT based stam sorc: Not killable on your own due to passive health recovery (2k+) combined with multiple healing sources. The opposite is, however not true.

Trust me, there is waaaay worse than 15k tooltip on Dizzying swing.

EDIT: Typo

@mcurley , I agree. These builds seem a little suspect. Definitely a gankblade is a viable thing - especially with the influx of people who like to run alchemist, horse gank, and then T bag like they did something impressive! The funny thing is that's actually a horrible rotation for a gankblade. Bow heavy --> poison inject --> ambush --> incap --> bash --> light attack --> surprise attack --> bash --> light attack --> reverse slash --> bash is a hell of a lot more consistent, albeit, they're dead before the full rotation. But ganking isn't fun because it's uninteractive. That's why I tend to not sneak when I sit on transit lines - I want a fight!

I really doubt the leaching plate tank, given that someone has to suffer through and farm IC dungeons religiously to get those pieces. When it comes down to brass tacks, you'd rather just have a combat physician DK or a spell power cure templar. Even with leeching plate, I have huge doubts that 12 people who are in any way competent can't take down that tank. I've not seen an emp be able to sit passively and tank 12 people either.

Those magblade stats are not real - I had under 70k magicka as emp on my NB that was built exclusively for max magicka and spell damage with vicious death prior to the proxy nerfs.

2k health recovery is not impressive. They are also very killable - disease damage and defile work wonders against this. That said, they're still a *** to kill. Just don't paint them as immortal.

But @Asmael , your point at the end that there are worse things than a 15k dizzying swing is not wrong. There definitely are. I had a destro/resto NB that was hitting 7-9k noncrit medium weaves with 7k swallow souls. Those pop off a lot faster than a dizzying swing and are a lot less easy to play around unless you're S&B or a DK.

as a fellow BwB player... i tend to usually be running purple gear as others have said.... def at minimum go weapons purple ... on my magplar i run 5H/2L ... my damage isnt that great but the sustain is pretty damn good

If it's possible I'm sure someone has figured it out. I don't take my PvP heros into PvEland so I haven't bothered trying to do this.