Hi,

I cannot provide a TL;DR for this, if you are interested, read it, if you cant be arsed, then move on. Thanks.

If I were to ask you which resource pool is the most important in ESO pvp, some people will say: what a dumb question, it depends (on class, mag/stam etc.). Some might even say its health, since if you lose it all, you die. I say its neither. The single most important resource in any pvp fight is time.

Allow me to explain: the only limitation that you simply cannot overcome is the GCD. If we did not have GCD, then as long as you have enough magicka/stamina, you could keep using abilities forever, meaning that if you built enough sustain into your build, you will never become resource limited. You are always time limited though.

ESO pvp combat is - in its most quintessential form - a turn-based game, where 1 turn = 1 GCD and both combatants spend their own turn simultaneously so order does not matter.

Let’s simulate the least complex of all pvp fights: a 1v1 duel. For simplicity’s sake let’s say that both combatants have 20k health and 0 mitigation.


In the first GCD, both combatants damage the other for 5k damage, both are left at 15k health.

In the second GCD, both combatants damage the other for 5k damage, both are left at 10k health.

In the third GCD, both combatants damage the other for 5k damage, both are left at 5k health.


At this point, both combatants realize that they are 1 GCD away from dying (if the trend of 5k damage per GCD continues), so combatant 1 decides to cast a healing spell instead of a damaging ability, so he heals for 2k. Combatant 2 decides to go pedal to the metal and keep using a damaging ability, dealing another 5k damage to combatant 1.

At the end of the 4th GCD, combatant 1 is alive with 2k health (since he was damaged for 5k, but healed for 2k), combatant 2 is alive with 5k health (since he took no damage this GCD, because combatant 1 was healing instead of damaging). We can already recognize a very important rule here: a combatant does not die when his health reaches zero. He dies when his health is still zero or below zero at the end of the current GCD. 1 GCD = 1 sec roughly, so if you damage an opponent and his health goes to negative 2k, if he heals himself, or gets outside healing that exceeds 2k, then he won’t die (in that GCD, might still die in the next one).

The above example was dumbed down insanely to lay a foundation to build upon. In this example combatants could either damage or heal in each GCD, but this is not the case in real pvp combat. Any measure that allows you to “cheat” the GCD provides an advantage over your opponent. For example: any Damage over time effect or healing over time effect allows you to cast the ability in the first GCD, then enjoy the lingering effects of it the next GCD. Since the lingering effect requires no active action on your part, you are free to use a damaging ability on top of the lingering effect.

The fact that you can either take a defensive action or an offensive one in a single GCD, but never both drives decision making on all levels. Successful pvp players try to maximize their time (number of GCDs) spent on the offense and minimize their time spent on defense. This makes sense since generally speaking, defensive abilities cost more than offensive ones, so if you get pressured and cannot “turn” the fight around, you are stuck casting defensive abilities for as long as you can, but will still eventually die, since you have no way of forcing your opponent to stop the offense (and you will run out of stam/mag sooner before they do).

“Skill” is measured by the opponents’ ability to correctly guess their opponents next move and act accordingly (keeping in mind that their goal is to kill the opponent). In this sense, our brains are all just biocomputers and we are running probability calculations by the thousands each second – on a subconscious level. Great pvp-ers even think several turns ahead (e.g. I can spend 1 GCD to finish off this 1 guy, but if I do that the 6 more that are closing in will kill me 3 GCDs later, so instead of finishing this one guy off asap, I spend a defensive action instead and survive).

So lets look at some stuff with this newly acquired knowledge: let’s dissect vigor for example: in “time management” terms this skill allows you to ignore ~2k damage from your enemy every GCD for 5 GCDs for the cost of 1 GCD (the one where you effectively cast vigor, since in that GCD you cant do anything else). This means that if the incoming damage from your enemy does not exceed 2k per GCD, then you are free to attack him yourself for 4 GCDs straight and never feel pressured (since you are not losing health at all). This in turn removes a great number of possibilities in the probability calculations – making it easier to read the situation.

Some abilites or tools are too effective at providing defense at no action cost. This means that the opportunity cost (=number of GCDs spent on defense instead of offense) of certain skills is disproportionately lower than other defensive mechanisms. Armor and passive mitigation (maim and protection) is number 1 since the opportunity cost of these is zero. You don’t actually need to spend a single GCD to get the effect, they are passive. More mitigation leads to less damage taken leads to more time spent on offense rather than defense. Similarly lingering health potions are way too effective. For the cost of 1 GCD (potion usage is weird, its not bound by GCD per say, but you still cannot swallow a potion at any time, its not off the GCD in the way synergy activations are), you get 47 seconds (!!!) of a lingering healing effect – which directly counters enemy damage. Shields are way too effective, because for their duration they completely dumb down the probability calculations for the shield user, since they cannot take damage in those GCDs when the shield is active. This is exactly the reason why shields are infuriatingly effective in 1v1-s but less effective in 1vX, because in a 1v1, if the shield user casts a shield, then the next 3-4 GCDs they are completely immune to damage and thus are free to use damaging abilities themselves. This is how sorcs set up their burst, they need this unhindered 3-4 GCDs. If there are many opponents, then shields wont last this 3-4 GCDs, because incoming damage will break it sooner, forcing the sorcerer to take defensive actions (e.g. recast shields) instead of continuing the offense. Cloak is similar, but somewhat different – for the cost of 1 GCD spent on defense, you get 2 more GCDs of unhindered defense. You cannot spend these 2 GCDs on offense, because that will get rid of cloak, but you are free to spend it on additional defensive actions while being completely immune to enemy damage.

When people talk about “burst”, what they mean is stack enough damage in 1 GCD that outright kills the opponent without chance of recovery. Outside of ganking scenarios, this can only happen using delayed burst, utilizing damage of time effects and abilities that deal damage several GCDs later from when they were cast (curse, “travel time” skills like snipe, dark flare etc.) The “skill” in this is to chain several skills after each other in such an order that they damage the enemy in 1 GCD – all in the meanwhile mitigating your opponent’s offense in a passive way (so that you don’t have to take active actions on defense). Your only other chance of winning outside this is simply overpowering your opponent, bringing more passive defense and high damage – but this will likely not work against a seasoned pvp-er.

Of course animation cancelling plays a major role as well. Since animation cancelling light attacks together with using skills is possible within a single GCD this increases the damage taken per GCD extremely for the opponent for free. If you master this technique (and can play it in Cyro lag) you have a major advantage over an opponent who doesnt use it.

CC is interesting too. What this does is remove every other possible choice from your opponent for that 1 GCD but to break free. Since you can count on this, you can plan ahead a few GCDs and set up a combo that allows you to stack as much damage into the 1 GCD where your opponent is helpless as to kill him, like I explained it before in the burst section.

Anyway, my 2 cents about pvp as i understand it

Haribo