DJCampbell12 wrote: »When I first started doing PvP, it was only for daily Battlegrounds or for specific tasks/gear out in Cyrodil. Now, I've been trying to dive in more and enjoy the PvP experience.
I AM STRUGGLING
I'm asking for a bit of (non-toxic) help in figuring out where I'm lacking and where I need to focus my time and start a discussion on what works for you in PvP personally.
I've got a couple different characters that I've tried playing with. I have followed guided builds and tried my own on each of them. Nothing is seeming to work. So, I'm needing to take a step back and figure out a better use of my time while playing.
I can't figure out if its issues with my weapons and armor, skills rotation, CP allocation, or just connection/lag. No matter what I try, it seems I can't figure out why I'm being destroyed in every fight. I even have problems just surviving in fights when I'm not trying to practice damage. I do alright when I'm with a small group but am undoubtedly the weakest link. You can't always find a good, enjoyable group to play with either so I want to get better solo.
My biggest frustration seems to be that in comparison with people that come through, get a stun on me, and by the time I Breakfree and that animation is done, the other player has gotten a heavy attack, and 2-3 skills, for 5k+ damage a piece. While on the other hand, if I get the jump on someone, I get a light attack and one skill before they've dodge rolled out and are healing back to full health with CC immunity. It's even worse when its a tank setup that doesn't even have to breakfree from me and I can't get their health down through their self-heals.
I can't imagine that all the times that it seems like lag that it actually is, and that no one else is as affected by it like me.
A little about my setup: I am CP 450. My gear is all epic quality with select enchantments on each. For my main character, Magicka Templar, I am a Breton, I wear light armor Law of Julianos, Light of Cyrodil, and heavy Mother Ciannatt/Icebreaker (I've also tried Valkyn Skoria for damage instead of damage shield) Majority of them with Divines Trait, but a couple impenetrables. Atronach mundus stone. Attributes: 54 M 10 H 0 S. Dual wield and shock staff.
Should I focus my time purely on getting my CP up? Should I instead spend the time and money getting materials to improve my gear? Yes, I know that both of these will obviously help, but I've so far refused to believe that I can't at least compete in PvP without being fully maxed out from the start. Should I work on trusting my skills rotation more, as in, not waiting for the visual animations and prehitting my skills? Should I get all new gear? Respec my attribute points? Learn to trust blocking more than rolling and move to S&B?
I'd like to hear thoughts.
Keep the "Just get out of our queues already and stop holding up the real players" or "just get gud", "get better" comments out of here.
I've definitely done better in Battlegrounds, at least to the point of getting kills and surviving a bit more. I forget this sometimes, but I still do poorly and get really frustrated. Probably because I can't use the excuse of "Oh they're just much higher level than me so that's why they just pooped on me"1. If you are just doing BG's then CP has no bearing on that anyways since CP is disabled.
What kind of crafting and gear access do you have?
What platform?
I have thought about moving to a healer. The only thing that has stopped me is that our regular group already has a good, well-built healer. It wouldn't be bad for me to level up the healing side though for my second bar with a resto staff perhaps...Honestly since you are CP 450 its going to be really hard to be competitive in the CP camps. I would highly suggest you look into maybe becoming a healer.
shrekt4303 wrote: »Go pariah and stage 3 vamp.
it's not you OP...I mean sure you can improve your builds and rotations, but, there's no way at cp450 you are going to be able to fight someone with 1,000 or so cp...just not gonna happen...
what you can do though: build for survivability, then sustain...as you gather more cp you can begin to worry about dealing damage...
so you can still earn a good bit of AP, focus on aoe heals and damage skills, particularly heals over time and damage over time abilities...
also, whenever you reach a keep, try to repair a door or wall (just need to do it once) so you can get on the defensive "tick" list...lots of free AP there...
use siege whenever possible and learn how to use your allies to help your survive and kill enemies...
understand and accept: with that cp 450 over your head - you are going to be targeted a bunch...you can use that though to your advantage - a whole lot...enemies will be extremely over confident trying to attack you...
also wouldn't hurt using block, roll dodge and keeping walls, rocks and whatever else you can find between yourself and enemies as much as possible...
seriously, you can really mess some folks up if you can figure out how to tank up and use your allies...
Joy_Division wrote: »What you describe is typical of a new player's experience.
Your gear, weapon choices, and traits strike me more of a PvE damage build than a PvP all around build. Divines, DW +
Lightning, Julianos offer nothing in the way of defense and you're mostly counting on that 15% reduction to damage while jabbing not to die, which isn't much. This is most likely why you die so quick after getting stunned. I generally think it is best to build / learn to survive than worry about damage.
As a templar, it's probably best to have one bar + weapon devoted to defense and one bar + weapon devoted to offense. The defense weapon is either a resto staff (if you use this, you run Regeneration; I'd go with Radiating since odds are Allies are going to be around you and you want to ensure you get a heal when you cast it), or Ice staff (which you will block with and slot either Elemental drain or Ice Wall, or sword and shield (which you will block with). Your defense bar also always has these 3 skills: Honor the Dead (recommend this morph unless you are 100% dedicated healer), one of the Ritual morphs (I think Extended is better for less experienced players), and Channeled Focus.
I also think templars should dedicated one set to defense. People all of a sudden rediscovered Pariah this patch and the price is insane. It's good, but you don't need to drop a fortune as I've used Impregnable, Robes of the Hist, Transmutation (if you use Extended Ritual), and they all work well enough. No divines on a templar. Impen is the best value. I do like sturdy on a shield if I use one. My advice is not to try to use a PVE defensive monster set. The shields you're getting are cut in half (or maybe 60% now, I forget), and a little damage shield isn't going to save you from a combo. I'd recommend either a Mythic (try Wild Hunt first) + stat helm (I like Dominhaus) or a monster set that doesn't have some sort of a tooltip (because of the nerf, like Bloodspawn for defense or Balrogh for offense). If you have a set dedicated to defense and keep your channel + Extended buffs up, someone else is absolutely going to be the weakest link.
Offense on a Magplar is easy Vs. inexperienced players, hard Vs. players who know what they are doing. If people melt or stand still when you jab, they're pretty much screwed. If they react to you and are tanky, you best have a font of patience or the class is going to frustrate you. (Lightning) Staff works ok, but if you're not draining the target you're way better off going either 2H or 2 swords because your raw damage will be noticeably higher. Topple + Jabs is your bread and butter (dont waste a slot of Javelin). Radiant Glory is good enough to slot, but if you use this when a decent player has over 25% health, you are wasting your time. I'd experiment between Sunfire, Purifying Light, and Solar Barrage. You're going to need some other source of damage Vs. good players and all these skills are pretty meh, so I'd only use one and check your combat logs if you play on PC (recommend combat metrics; be sure to turn "light" mode in cyrodiil off) to see which is giving the best value.
Arbiter7070 wrote: »First, your gear combination is not good. Your monster helm selection is not good either. You need to be MUCH tankier on a magplar. You need to be tanky on any class that's not a nightblade or sorc. A good idea when starting out is to pair an offensive set with a defensive set. I'm not telling you to run this but here's an example, Stuhns or Spinners plus Pariah. That's a very basic magplar set up but it will make you incredibly tanky and still able to deal good damage. With this set up you should probably run malacath or ring of the wild hunt if you want mobility over more damage. Mobility is really good on a Magplar with mistform. But here's the reality, you're going to get WRECKED at first in this game. It took me until 700 CP to actually feel confident. And it wasn't the CP level that did it. It was just hundreds of hours in Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil and Duels. Learning PVP in this game is trial by fire. You need to learn how to read, react, defend yourself and time up your burst combo's. Burst is king in PVP. You need to be able to capitalize on an opponents errors, either with their skill usage, positioning or their mismanaging of resources. You need to have an internal idea of how much resources you opponent has expended, whether they have their ultimate or not, and being aware of their burst combo as well. There are many factors that go into PVP and these are just a small few. But the first thing you need to do is give yourself a chance by running a defensive set. You can't learn if you're constantly dying to people's burst. You must learn to dodge, block, animation cancel (You can block animation cancel your heal on a magplar).
DJCampbell12 wrote: »Arbiter7070 wrote: »First, your gear combination is not good. Your monster helm selection is not good either. You need to be MUCH tankier on a magplar. You need to be tanky on any class that's not a nightblade or sorc. A good idea when starting out is to pair an offensive set with a defensive set. I'm not telling you to run this but here's an example, Stuhns or Spinners plus Pariah. That's a very basic magplar set up but it will make you incredibly tanky and still able to deal good damage. With this set up you should probably run malacath or ring of the wild hunt if you want mobility over more damage. Mobility is really good on a Magplar with mistform. But here's the reality, you're going to get WRECKED at first in this game. It took me until 700 CP to actually feel confident. And it wasn't the CP level that did it. It was just hundreds of hours in Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil and Duels. Learning PVP in this game is trial by fire. You need to learn how to read, react, defend yourself and time up your burst combo's. Burst is king in PVP. You need to be able to capitalize on an opponents errors, either with their skill usage, positioning or their mismanaging of resources. You need to have an internal idea of how much resources you opponent has expended, whether they have their ultimate or not, and being aware of their burst combo as well. There are many factors that go into PVP and these are just a small few. But the first thing you need to do is give yourself a chance by running a defensive set. You can't learn if you're constantly dying to people's burst. You must learn to dodge, block, animation cancel (You can block animation cancel your heal on a magplar).
I agree with everything you said. It's good to hear from another player about what kind of benchmark they were at when they felt a difference. For you it was 700. Hopefully by then I'll have a full set of gear that I like too.
As I have played more and more, I have felt a little bit more comfortable with guaging my enemies, their resources, and the current fight. It just takes more experience and a lot of trail and failure.
Ashamed to admit that I didn't know about the block animation cancel. There's a lot of those tricks I don't know about... I need to figure out how to learn those.
I can only agree with this and would add that the best practice is probably duelling people at your own or slightly better level to begin with.Joy_Division wrote: »What you describe is typical of a new player's experience.DJCampbell12 wrote: »When I first started doing PvP, it was only for daily Battlegrounds or for specific tasks/gear out in Cyrodil. Now, I've been trying to dive in more and enjoy the PvP experience.
I AM STRUGGLING
I'm asking for a bit of (non-toxic) help in figuring out where I'm lacking and where I need to focus my time and start a discussion on what works for you in PvP personally.
I've got a couple different characters that I've tried playing with. I have followed guided builds and tried my own on each of them. Nothing is seeming to work. So, I'm needing to take a step back and figure out a better use of my time while playing.
I can't figure out if its issues with my weapons and armor, skills rotation, CP allocation, or just connection/lag. No matter what I try, it seems I can't figure out why I'm being destroyed in every fight. I even have problems just surviving in fights when I'm not trying to practice damage. I do alright when I'm with a small group but am undoubtedly the weakest link. You can't always find a good, enjoyable group to play with either so I want to get better solo.
My biggest frustration seems to be that in comparison with people that come through, get a stun on me, and by the time I Breakfree and that animation is done, the other player has gotten a heavy attack, and 2-3 skills, for 5k+ damage a piece. While on the other hand, if I get the jump on someone, I get a light attack and one skill before they've dodge rolled out and are healing back to full health with CC immunity. It's even worse when its a tank setup that doesn't even have to breakfree from me and I can't get their health down through their self-heals.
I can't imagine that all the times that it seems like lag that it actually is, and that no one else is as affected by it like me.
A little about my setup: I am CP 450. My gear is all epic quality with select enchantments on each. For my main character, Magicka Templar, I am a Breton, I wear light armor Law of Julianos, Light of Cyrodil, and heavy Mother Ciannatt/Icebreaker (I've also tried Valkyn Skoria for damage instead of damage shield) Majority of them with Divines Trait, but a couple impenetrables. Atronach mundus stone. Attributes: 54 M 10 H 0 S. Dual wield and shock staff.
Should I focus my time purely on getting my CP up? Should I instead spend the time and money getting materials to improve my gear? Yes, I know that both of these will obviously help, but I've so far refused to believe that I can't at least compete in PvP without being fully maxed out from the start. Should I work on trusting my skills rotation more, as in, not waiting for the visual animations and prehitting my skills? Should I get all new gear? Respec my attribute points? Learn to trust blocking more than rolling and move to S&B?
I'd like to hear thoughts.
Keep the "Just get out of our queues already and stop holding up the real players" or "just get gud", "get better" comments out of here.
I agree. I do not like Cyrodiil's Light. I think it can work, but only when you run a very specific build that makes the most of it. That build is an old one, called the Phalanx build, which uses Meditate (Psijic) and Mist Form. Cyrodiil's Light not only applies while jabbing, but also when you meditate and, in old patches at least, during Mist Form. Furthermore people try to interrupt your meditation and that activates the sustain feature of Cyrodiil's Light. If you're not running a variation of that specific build, I would not recommend Cyrodiil's Light.Your gear, weapon choices, and traits strike me more of a PvE damage build than a PvP all around build. Divines, DW +
Lightning, Julianos offer nothing in the way of defense and you're mostly counting on that 15% reduction to damage while jabbing not to die, which isn't much. This is most likely why you die so quick after getting stunned.
I think this is true from a build point of view, especially for templar and with the insane damage this patch. However from a playstyle point of view, the class needs to be played very aggressively when on the attack, e.g. Toppling Charge, good positioning and be relentless with Jabs. Do not take Joy Division's advice to mean that you should learn to actively defend. Yes, you have to do that, but if you are only defending you burn far more resources than when you use cheaper attacking skills (this is true in general). The attacker will outsustain you. Attack is the best defense, if you can make it work. Templar can't block while casting Jabs and it is a clunky skill. This is why, when you add up the 4 hits, they do an insane amount of damage, compared to other spammables - especially on a stamplar, but also on magplar. It's landing all those hits without the game flaking out with lag and positional desyncs or the other player just plain outmaneuvering you, that's the problem. I like (some) Swift jewelry and/or Wild Hunt for that reason. You want to be at the correct distance from the target, not too close, not too far.I generally think it is best to build / learn to survive than worry about damage.
I agree. This is also true in general. That approach plays well. The weapon choice, though is a toughie. I've liked resto staff in the past, because magplar lacks ongoing healing. In PvE hitting stuff with Puncturing Sweeps heals you a ton. In PvP it does not. Especially when the target is tanky. A resto staff gives you ongoing healing options, such as Radiating Regeneration or the ultimate. On the other hand (a) you need to find room to fit a resto heal (you want Honor the Dead either way too) and (b) a blocking weapon feels tankier. I automatically block cast Honor the Dead when I'm low health and, well, that works. Using 1H + Shield gives you access to Spell Wall, very good, and it has a mobility passive while blocking. It feels better than an ice staff. Using an ice staff gives you better damage options. You can light attack from range and get the full value of an enchant (1H+S = enchants count for half). You can possibly use a Vateshran destro on the back bar. Having all defensive skills on the back bar, but one offensive skill, such as Elemental Drain, plays well. You heal up, you cast your one offensive skill, then you bar swap and attack. Note however - and this is why I do not like the ice staff all that much: It's light attacks are slow. If you cast them from distance and bar swap, the ice staff light attack may only land after your bar swap and, in that case, your backbar enchant won't activate.As a templar, it's probably best to have one bar + weapon devoted to defense and one bar + weapon devoted to offense.
Epic (purple) is fine. In fact, since the meta is always changing, I almost never gold out my armor. However I buy gold jewelry from the Cyrodiil weekend vendor when I can and always use gold weapons (though not shields and possibly not gold off-hand DW weapons).DJCampbell12 wrote: »A little about my setup: I am CP 450. My gear is all epic quality with select enchantments on each.
As others have said, Julianos is a no and armor type should be some mixture of light and heavy (and medium), although I personally agree with 5x light. Instead of Julianos -> Amber Plasm is an easy swap for the all important stam regen. Instead of Light of Cyrodiil -> Pariah. But that's only one option - see above or complete PvP builds others are recommending to you.For my main character, Magicka Templar, I am a Breton, I wear light armor Law of Julianos, Light of Cyrodil, and heavy Mother Ciannatt/Icebreaker (I've also tried Valkyn Skoria for damage instead of damage shield)
Noooooooo.Majority of them with Divines Trait
Good.Atronach mundus stone.
This is really your biggest issue. You need a defensive weapon. Dual wield or shock staff (or 2H) front bar, but not both. Back bar: Resto or ice or 1H+S.Dual wield and shock staff.
No. Do what is fun. Play in no CP campaign, probably.Should I focus my time purely on getting my CP up?
Only weapons, if not already gold. Traits need to change. Prismatic enchants are somewhat optional, given the price. Maybe play in IC to get some Tel Var, although IC is probably the toughest place to play.Should I instead spend the time and money getting materials to improve my gear?
That is correct. Experience and muscle memory count for the most. Duel people. That will involve some CP mismatches of necessity, but what can you do.Yes, I know that both of these will obviously help, but I've so far refused to believe that I can't at least compete in PvP without being fully maxed out from the start.
YES!Should I work on trusting my skills rotation more, as in, not waiting for the visual animations and prehitting my skills?
Unfortunately, yes. But do not make everything gold. That would be a waste. Only weapons.Should I get all new gear?
Probably not really. I suppose your target is 30K health in CP PvP, these days. More red CP will help long term...Respec my attribute points?
Yes and no. S&B yes (or other defensive back bar weapon). Block-casting Honor the Dead, typically yes. Don't overdo it, though, or your stamina will be gone. This comes with experience. Dodge rolling is also good. You need both while not overdoing either. You might practice Honor the Dead into a dodge roll, which you can fit into a single second. In general:Learn to trust blocking more than rolling and move to S&B?
There is said to be a blocking bug at the moment, where it consumes inordinate amounts of stamina...
DJCampbell12 wrote: »Joy_Division wrote: »What you describe is typical of a new player's experience.
Your gear, weapon choices, and traits strike me more of a PvE damage build than a PvP all around build. Divines, DW +
Lightning, Julianos offer nothing in the way of defense and you're mostly counting on that 15% reduction to damage while jabbing not to die, which isn't much. This is most likely why you die so quick after getting stunned. I generally think it is best to build / learn to survive than worry about damage.
As a templar, it's probably best to have one bar + weapon devoted to defense and one bar + weapon devoted to offense. The defense weapon is either a resto staff (if you use this, you run Regeneration; I'd go with Radiating since odds are Allies are going to be around you and you want to ensure you get a heal when you cast it), or Ice staff (which you will block with and slot either Elemental drain or Ice Wall, or sword and shield (which you will block with). Your defense bar also always has these 3 skills: Honor the Dead (recommend this morph unless you are 100% dedicated healer), one of the Ritual morphs (I think Extended is better for less experienced players), and Channeled Focus.
I also think templars should dedicated one set to defense. People all of a sudden rediscovered Pariah this patch and the price is insane. It's good, but you don't need to drop a fortune as I've used Impregnable, Robes of the Hist, Transmutation (if you use Extended Ritual), and they all work well enough. No divines on a templar. Impen is the best value. I do like sturdy on a shield if I use one. My advice is not to try to use a PVE defensive monster set. The shields you're getting are cut in half (or maybe 60% now, I forget), and a little damage shield isn't going to save you from a combo. I'd recommend either a Mythic (try Wild Hunt first) + stat helm (I like Dominhaus) or a monster set that doesn't have some sort of a tooltip (because of the nerf, like Bloodspawn for defense or Balrogh for offense). If you have a set dedicated to defense and keep your channel + Extended buffs up, someone else is absolutely going to be the weakest link.
Offense on a Magplar is easy Vs. inexperienced players, hard Vs. players who know what they are doing. If people melt or stand still when you jab, they're pretty much screwed. If they react to you and are tanky, you best have a font of patience or the class is going to frustrate you. (Lightning) Staff works ok, but if you're not draining the target you're way better off going either 2H or 2 swords because your raw damage will be noticeably higher. Topple + Jabs is your bread and butter (dont waste a slot of Javelin). Radiant Glory is good enough to slot, but if you use this when a decent player has over 25% health, you are wasting your time. I'd experiment between Sunfire, Purifying Light, and Solar Barrage. You're going to need some other source of damage Vs. good players and all these skills are pretty meh, so I'd only use one and check your combat logs if you play on PC (recommend combat metrics; be sure to turn "light" mode in cyrodiil off) to see which is giving the best value.
Some others have also mentioned focusing on survivability. I'm going to make that my priority. You're definitely right about not having the defense in my gear. My logic in that is the better resource management with my mundus stone and divines, and the magicka perks of the gear/light armor. I used to constantly be out of Magicka
You're also right on the Pariah set being extremely popular and overpriced this patch. Someone was trying to sell a green cuirass of pariah for 45K. I am working on getting this myself.
I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I didn't know that the damage shield is cut in half in PvP. Makes me feel dumb for that.
I was using Javelin actually, I enjoyed the knockback to give myself a bit of space. Why do you recommend not using that?
Radiant glory has been my finishing move lately. I try to get a mix of vampires bane, purifying light, (toppling charge to close the distance or get a stun) puncturing sweep, and radiant oppression as the finisher. I'll throw in a Sweep ultimate if I can too. That's my regular rotation but I just can't get the damage up enough even after getting all the way through that. Most of the times, I can't even get through that rotation without having to escape and heal already. By the time I heal, I'm out of magicka.
Your comment was packed full of information and I'll definitely be referring back to it by the way.
Joy_Division wrote: »I don;t think Javelin is a good choice for a Magplar because the stun you want to use is Toppling Charge. You don;t want to knock opponents away from you. you want them stunned at your feet so you can immediately start jabbing. Also Toppling puts opponents off balance, which you can follow up with a heavy attack to get a huge resource return. Since the game only allows 10 abilities for you to slot, Javelin has a huge opportunity cost because of it's redundancy and is depriving you of something useful. I've fought Templars for over seven years and Id say 90% of them that used javelin felt like mediocre players who'd use Javelin and didn't have any plan on how to follow it up.
Javelin was great when you could still knock players to the ground from oil ledges at outposts and inner keeps. Honestly the best case use for that, and it doesn't do that anymore, so....
I agree in so far as I wouldn't PvP without a proper PvP build. That said, I think PvP is 70% about experience. Maybe more.PVP above 50 is all about gears to me. So you need to first farm a set of top gears and avoid PVP at all before that.
PVP = gear, gear, and gear.
DJCampbell12 wrote: »
I'm asking for a bit of (non-toxic) help in figuring out where I'm lacking and where I need to focus my time and start a discussion on what works for you in PvP personally.