Are you wearing any impen gear? You should have at least 1500-2000 impen if you want to be able to eat some damage in Cyro.

Also with the availability of self heals, its unlikely a pure tanky character will be able to out DPS their opponents incoming heals. There are some cheezy tank builds revolving around crimson/thews and other damage returning sets, but you might find DPS more engaging in general anyways. If you get mowed down in 30 seconds as a tank you may as well go dps and get mowed down in 20 seconds while actually getting a kill or two.

There is also the issue of what you are fighting. Are you trying to 1vX, are you zergsurfing, are you picking smaller fights near the fringes of other bigger fights? Knowing what and when to fight is a big part of solo play and really you just have to keep at it to figure out what works best for you.

I've read a lot of really salty posts from people who run into supertanks that can't damage them but are too annoying to try to kill because they take little damage and self-heal, so if you are okay with just soaking up damage and helping to defend keeps by tanking, there's that option. If you want to make kills don't listen to me. xD

Like the post above states, you're better off joining a group. Much better survivability that way. PVP is all about burst damage, not necessarily DPS. This is part of the reason why proc sets are so strong; in a short matter of time you can do 20k+ damage to someone and delete them. I would have a bar for offense, and a bar for defense. Make sure to maintain all of your buffs and HoTs. The meta is pretty bad in cyrodiil , so I would try to learn the mechanics of pvp first before trying to dedicate time/gold to farming gear. Any shortcomings you have in a build are mitigated with a good group. Just be aware you will die a lot, and to not take it too seriously.

And if you're on DC buy some siege

Tankiness is a combination of healing received, passive mitigation, and active mitigations (skills like bitter harvest or cloak, line of sighting, things of that nature). Also "DPS" means basically nothing in Cyrodiil, killing power comes mostly from burst and executing combinations.

It sounds like you're coming from PvE land, so your build probably reflects that. Unfortunately PvE builds are no good in PvP. Even 'tanky' ones will get destroyed because they're PvE tanky, not PvP tanky.

Tell us what gear you're running and skills your using and we'll be able to give you a much more accurate description of what you could do to make it more survivable in cyrodiil.

If you build a pure tank, then you won't be doing much damage and will achieve nothing but be killed eventually. I suppose you can run up AP by participating in keep battles, but in terms of actual fights...

In answer to your question: You need to build for PvP. I do it via gear and skill changes, but my characters are also biased towards PvP via their mundus and CP choices, because PvP is my primary and PvE my secondary focus. Being a PvE DD will get you killed. A PvE tank may also be killed easily. PvE tanks tend to be about high health, resistances and group utility. PvP tanks aren't quite the same. More on that below.

PvP has a lot to do with movement, with dodge rolling and blocking, with using line-of-sight, with keeping track of where the battle lines are, but also with knowing how to deal with specific other classes and builds. In a duel it has to do with ebb and flow. Do you have ultimate? Do you have CC immunity? Do you have all your buffs up? Then go on attack. Did you manage to pressure your opponent into defense? Then stay on attack. However some opponents, especially better players, will lull you into a false sense of security and may easily kill you on a counterattack or at least force you into defense. That's what it's all about.

The above things are probably not ones you can gain experience in quickly. There are, however, some things that carry over from PvE. You need to have a good, albeit not static, but fluid rotation. In particular you need to keep your defensive buffs and heals up. A very common thing I see with new players is that they forget to heal or they're not built properly to achieve it. Examine your own gameplay. If there are occasions where your health is below 40% for more than 2 or 3 seconds, maybe because you're just frantically dodge rolling, then you're a goner.

You want to be a tank or tanky in PvP, a lot of that is about self-healing. You need as many sources of healing as you can reasonably find. These include burst heals, heals over time, healing from attacks, healing from being attacked, healing from enchants, healing from armor sets and health regen.

If you're on a stamina character, Resolving Vigor is a must. Typically your build will have an offensive bar (weapon) and a defensive one. I recommend having Vigor on the defensive bar. In many of my builds that bar includes a single attack skill, such as Poison Injection or Pierce Armor. This flows well from a gameplay perspective. You buff up. You use Vigor proactively. You start your attack with Poison Injection, Pierce Armor or some other attack skill on that bar. Then you bar swap for more attack skills.

Anyway, we were talking about healing. I have many sources of it (probably more than 5) in every build. Let's go over the different types:

(1) A burst heal. Rally. Honor the Dead. Arctic Blast. Sorc Twilight. Soothing Spores. These are the star heals that you might think will get you out of trouble. Wrong (except for maybe Arctic Blast)! Those heals can be a life-saver in emergency, but they are expensive. If that is your main or exclusive heal, you tend to get backed into spamming it and you're a goner. These heals tend to not just have a high magicka or stamina cost, they also have a high opportunity cost. You're spending a second to activate them when you're being attacked and are in trouble. That is very bad. Better to have have other heals that are passive or that you pre-activated when you were idly running around.

(2) Heals over time. Much better. There are short ones and long ones. If you can, get both. For example on my stam DK I use both Vigor (4 seconds) and Cauterize (15 seconds in 5 second intervals). Those heals complement each other, due to their different durations and proc intervals. On the magicka side we have Regeneration from resto staff. Note that these heals are proactive, not reactive. You can't spam Vigor. If you find yourself spamming one of these heals, you need to look at your rotation. You left it too late or you're missing other options.

(3) Healing while attacking. Healing from attack or from being attacked is also a must in many builds in addition to the above. This includes sorc Crit Surge, nightblade Siphoning Strikes, nightblade Swallow Soul, DK Burning Embers, DK Flame Lash, any warden animal skill (from passive), templar Puncturing Sweeps and so on, and so on. Pay attention to all those skills and your passives when putting a build together. It all counts. The problem with those skills is that you have to be on the attack. Should you be forced into defense or having to flee, then you're suddenly a lot squishier and your healing breaks down.

(4) Healing from being attacked. Yep. It exists. Warden's Living Trellis and templar's Living Dark are examples. This will make you feel far tankier than healing from attacking as it offsets part of the damage you receive and is much more consistent than healing from attacking. There are some armor sets that also work this way, such as Crimson Twlight.

(5) Healing from enchants. This is kind of an honorable mention, but I personally like using the deal magic damage / restore health enchant on an Infused staff on classes / builds that otherwise lack healing, such as magicka nightblade.

(6) Healing from armor and weapon sets. Some good examples for PvP include: Master's 1-Hand + Shield (Puncturing Remedy) on back bar. Cyrodiil's Crest (also on the back bar). Almalexia's Mercy (includes group utility). Briarheart (weak, but it's a damage set, thus don't look a gift horse in the mouth). Juggernaut (a set that will save you once a minute, if you get in too deep). Crimson Twilight (popular). No doubt many more.

(7) Health Regen. Health Regen is everywhere these days and it's important. It's the primary feature of some builds, particularly werewolf builds that run Alessian Armor. Those builds have 4K+, but that's at the high end. Every build benefits, even when it's less. Keep in mind that health regen is not affected by Battle Spirit. Run gold food, if you can afford it. Try Eternal Vigor, one of the best PvP sets. Troll King was nerfed but is still a viable option. Alessian plus Willow's Path is also viable. Endurance jewelry / weapons fit some builds.

(8) Play the high-health meta. Heals that scale with health (you want 30K+), such as Arctic Blast, are currently the in thing, e.g. they work well. I still wouldn't use DK Green Dragon Blood, cause it's based on missing health - not the same thing - though I haven't tried it lately. Stamsorc Clannfear is another health-based option. Templar has a health-based shield. There are a few others.

OK, well, this devolved mainly into a discussion on self-healing. I haven't even talked about resistances and many other things. Just goes to show how big of a topic this is. I'll have to leave it here, though.

Listen to what all the above posts say, your best bet is to run a tank build with proc sets. And run in a group as well. It's very easy mode so you won't really learn how to pvp this way but you will get more out of MYM than if you were to just run something with a steep learning curve.

fioskal wrote: »

If you are going just for the event tickets, you can do the daily town quests as well for them. Don'

Hmmm.

I see quests to capture keeps, lumbermills, kill nightblades or defend and elderscrool....all sound very PvP'ish (hence, death)
Are those the quests?

Tanks

Divines is fine for your purposes, if you go with the Lady or possibly the Steed. Someone asked for a rundown on traits for PvP recently. My answer is here. Also look at Dracane's reply to my post.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7088420/#Comment_7088420

Above you got a lot of long answers from really good players.
But for a beginner, I think none of this matters. Your gear, your skills, what you do in a fight...it does not matter.

The first thing you need to learn is to read the map. Look at the layout of the keeps, where the battles are, read the chat.
You will get a fealing where do go and where not to go, very fast. You will find the right fights.

When you find them, stay at range. Don´t care about killing anyone, Just engage in a fight and learn.
You will notice when you´re ready to get into melee. Use buffs with health and regen. And don´t be afraid to die.

When you die, use it as an advantage. Read the map. use the release as a free port function to whereever the next fight might be for you.

When you get used to this, you can do your dailies with a level 10 char, get kills with a level 10 char. Just learn where you can or should be and where it´s not good to be.

If you play solo pvp you have to tap to everything
Damage should be burst oriented, continual high dps Isn't working that good. You have to kill your enemy before he starts going defensive
If you go damage, mostly your heals go up too
You need to be also tankish to take some beating. Other form of tankiness is speed and line-of-sight. Use trees and rocks to your advantage.

I say go 40% damage 20% heals 40% mobility and you have high chances to survive most battles