There is something going on where this has become quite common. I’m also not sure what’s happening, so I can only hypothesize. I’m talking about players of most any class that seems like they can take hundreds of thousands in damage over 20-30 seconds and continue to swing their health from very low to full while still putting out damage.

I’m skeptical it’s specialty gear because this mitigation is quite common, and we all see what the meta builds are and those are about power, power, power.

Therefore, I’m kinda suspecting that we’ve reached a “tipping point” in the CP power creep where builds can be so strong in defense that it causes this. Like consider a generic heal. Two years ago it might have healed for 10k. Now with the CP changes and increases, and new sets, maybe that same heal does 15k-20k. It still costs the same, and players still all run w 20-25k health, so that same heal is more effective in relation to the stats, helping close health recovery gaps that would occur before that enabled kills. In other words, before a player would be at -5k health after 4seconds, -10k at 8, -15k at 12, then -20k health and in execute range at 16 seconds. Now their HOTs bridge that. When multiple defensive skills are all stacked, it’s closing most any opportunity for kills, even when that player is taking massive damage.

Then on the offense side, ZOS puts into place nerfs to prevent abilities from getting out of control. The power creep means that offense is still getting stronger and damage is going up, but it’s advancing slower than defense. They’ve maintained this control so that average players don’t get one-shotted. It’s worked, and my dps against an average player still mostly works like it did two years ago. But as a result, my power hasn’t kept up with what it needs to in order to take down well-conceived builds. It’s a two way street - I get hit with haunting curse and I laugh it off, letting it consume 10% of my health then healing it back. Curse is a core single target offense skill...it shouldn’t be less scary than a skeever.

That’s my general theory - defense has outpaced offense, making everyone a heal and shield tank. I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s made Zergs invincible, and maybe worse it’s made experienced players invincible so that we all pick on less experienced players, which can't be good for maintaining a healthy population.

But never fear! The update 17 patch notes have like 3 minor changes to combat balance. So clearly that’s going to solve everything.

Dreth wrote: »

At 25k HP, how is this possible? Makes me think for open world the real players are running full defense sets like brass/impreg or something.

In a word: Yes. Or at least that's one way to go. As a mag toon, wearing light armor goes a long way towards your damage and resource management. Thus on my magblade, who I feel is otherwise too squishy, I run Armor Master, Blood Spawn and a utility set (Skooma Smuggler). Instead of Armor Master any other defensive set will have similar results, to be honest, including Brass, Riposte, Transmutation and Impregnable. I find mitigation works well in no CP, whereas for CP crit resistance is somewhat more important.

I typically have barely over 20K health in PvP. When I get focused, my defenses on magblade include 2 shields (Harness + Healing Ward), Resto Ult, Forward Momentum, Cloak, and sometimes Fear, in conjunction with Immov pots. This tells you I am running a somewhat unorthodox 2H / resto build. I tried destro / resto and destro / 2H, and also Troll King. Those approaches pale in comparison to having both Forward Momentum and Healing Ward / resto ult in the builld, at least for my magblade. When a small group, quite often, can't kill me, they move to focus another target.

Some people have told me they find 20K health insufficient, and that moving into the 25K to 30K range made a big difference to them. I believe what they are primarily talking about is being ganked. I don't find that a problem, as I continually refresh my buffs. As a magblade, if I am not cloaked, I am shielded. As any other mag toon, I am always shielded. As my stam DK, I am buffed and I am either moving around a lot, or blocking, while turning a flag.

Meteors are quite funny when you are shielded, and you are using Immov pots and Forward Momentum. For the most part you keep on walking and they just wash over you.

I should say I don't play vampire. A lot of players do and benefit from the Undeath passive, as well as Mist Form.

Things feel quite a bit easier on mag warden. Basically Shacklebreaker / Necropotence will push magicka above 50K. Up to 60K with Imperial Physique. Combine this with healing from their animal skills and being healed from attacks (Living Trellis), warden feels tankier than magblade or magplar in light armor. Having Harness Magicka at 10K+ (in PvP) feels a lot better than 8K. At least this is an approach that works in CP. Harness is also a fantastic sustain skill in most fights. I run destro / resto on the warden. Healing Ward is still too good to give up.

I find it difficult to attack while defending on the magblade. My mode of operation tends to be to get back into cloak, and regroup. I find it easier on the warden to fit in a fissure in particular. This may have something to do with the fact that you target the fissure only 3 seconds later, so it's kind of just like another buff.

I haven't personally found a good approach for magplar yet, as I've played it the least. They don't get the 8% magicka bonus that both warden and NB have access to, and a mitigation set, like Armor Master, did not feel good to me either. Perhaps something overlooked is the effectiveness of healing over time and/or while attacking, something that magplar is not good at, outside of Sweeps. Magblade has a lot of options, such as Funnel, Siphoning Attacks, Refreshing Path, and so on. Part of the tankiness of warden comes from them offsetting incoming damage with Living Trellis. Sorcs rely on Surge. Templars may use Eclipse, which I haven't tried yet. Basically you have to look at all your skills and figure out where the healing is coming from. The more the better. Blood Thirst, Blood Craze, Rend, Draining Shot, and so on. Are you an Orc or Nord? Then Troll King is a good option. In fact, (Orc) stamsorcs are known to supplement insufficient healing with that.

My friend is a CP300 stamblade, who is getting really good. He made a similar comment as the OP about my stam DK. He kills plenty of players, but (at CP300 at least) he cannot even make headway against my DK, who is in medium armor, and will kill him. In that case her defenses / healing include being a Nord (6% damage reduction), Troll King, Fortified Brass, Bloodthirst, Vigor, Forward Momentum, Blade Cloak, Wings, Shuffle, Hardened Armor, Corrosive Armor, and DK ultimate use in general. It all stacks, and once a char stacks a lot of healing, it often looks like they are tanky when that's not exactly what they're doing.

Having said all that, I still consider myself a mediocre player. I basically watch my health bar (more than the opponents), and make sure my shield(s) are up on a mag toon. For the stam DK, I use the BuffTimers addon and make sure to keep up Shuffle, Momentum (heal), Hardened Armor and so on. I use Vigor as soon as my health dips. I should also mention that Fossilize and Fear are two particularly good CCs that take the pressure off, and I find Immov pots mandatory.

For a mag toon, make sure you have enough stamina sustain. You can partially offset this requirement with the Immov pots, but I prefer getting stam regen to at least 800, even with those pots, and even if it means a stam regen jewelry enchant (e.g. not wearing Shacklbreaker / Amber Plasm). For the warden I recommend the Bull Netch for PvP as it will still give you stamina while blocking or sprinting. Forget about the 1-effect purge. It will never purge the root, snare, Curse or Power of the Light that you want it to purge anyway.

I have a friend who is better than me and will beat me in duels. Some of the things I believe he does better is light attacking between every skill, and selective blocking / dodge rolling, based on what I do. As others have said, staying close to obstacles and using LoS is also a big part of open world PvP.