For years I wore light armor in PVP with very low crit resist essentially relying on my shields. I never had much issue with it with the exception of snipers ... it was always very easy to kill me from ranged stealth if I was unprepared. The “thhhhooop-thhhhooop” sound of incoming death was one that I just came to acknowledge as part of life in Cyrodiil. No biggie.
Anyway, in respecking my toon I figured I’d give some actual real armor a try. Went 5-1-1 heavy, got both resists to around 30k, and maxed out the CP crit resist tree at 1650.
Here is what I’ve noticed. Please keep in mind that I likely have a thousand PVP hours over the last 4 years even though I’ve barely played this year.
Improvement: I no longer insta-die by sniper.
Failure: Essentially everything else.
There seems to be almost no benefit from the massive resistances other than not getting one shot from a sniper. I could do everything else defensively - lasting just as long - with LA and harness magic as I can now in HA with ward ally. Except now I can’t kill anyone one on one.
Is that really the big deal about crit resist? That you lower the likelihood of being one shot on a horse and literally nothing else? I just don’t see what the big deal is. I was much more survivable in LA with 50k magic than HA with 41k. Previously I could spam heals and shields until my attacker was out of stamina and still have 20k magic left for a counter attack. Now I just ... um ... die like I should?
I think I’m just gonna go back to being chum for snipers. It’s way better than dying to EVERYONE else and not them. Haha.