I fell asleep at the controller today! PVP

xiphactinus · October 2021

I've been meaning to set up and level up a pvp character for a while so I had a toon spare and went for it today. I joined the Grey host campaign in Cyrodiil and my god it's easy to understand why it's nigh on impossible to engage the pve community. I thought I would start off by doing the tutorial quests first and things started well until I finished those and went on to the dailies to get a bump in AP and xp. Now here is where it went wrong for me:
First daily: Scout mission...Endless walking, then some more walking....then the walk back to base. Couldn’t locate any wayshrines to get back to base, more walking.
Ok, try something else. Recover elder scroll mission. A ton more walking...Ran for a bit this time then some more walking. Started to literally fall asleep as I walked across the map. Got to the location finally and realised I had to get into an enemy fort to get the scroll? I couldn’t face the walk back to base so I found the nearest water source with slaughterfish in and ended it right there and then.
I don't usually pvp in any game, I'm not opposed to it and I kinda liked the idea of how it is initially presented in eso but deary me, it is tedious for a newcomer. Am I missing something? I cannot for the life of me understand how any of this could possibly encourage a primarily pve player to engage in Cyrodiil. Am I right in thinking that you cannot fast travel back to base without committing suicide? Surprise mechanics? I'm afraid my first experience wasn't positive and felt more like a ramble in the peak district followed by an afternoon nap than an all out war.
I think a lot of folk would give it a try if it was less walky more fighty and definitely less sleepy, Especially joining as a low level character curious about the pvp aspect of the game, as for me it's just not engaging in any sense and I will admit I went in not knowing what I'm doing for the most part but my word the walking....endless walking...

Can anyone who pvp's recommend a starting point to get into it that does not involve endless yawning and walking or is it worth it to keep trying in Cyrodiil, Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

vms11934 · October 2021

By 'walking' do you actually mean walking or are you riding? If you are actually walking, then why? If riding, yes it helps to have high mount speed (can be frustrating if mount speed is slow).

As for travel, wayshrines and transit stones are different. The wayshrine takes you back to the 'mainland.' Transit stones allow you to travel between keeps that you owned and connected. If you are on a faction that doesn't control much of anything, hoofing it is the way you will get around. If your faction does control a lot, just head into the nearest keep/outpost and use the transit stone to fast travel.

joerginger · October 2021

Ride, don't walk!

As for traveling around the map - unless the enemies control the entire map, you can use the transitus network to move from your home base to a friendly fort, or from a friendly fort back to your home base from where you can use a wayshrine to leave Cyrodiil.

Walking up to the superpowered enemy guards at a lumber mill, other resource or fort is a slightly slower alternative to traveling by slaughterfish. But it helps if you're too far from the water.

TequilaFire · October 2021

Might want to google how Cyrodiil works before jumping in.
There are a lot of good guides out there.

zaria · October 2021

joerginger wrote: »

Ride, don't walk!

As for traveling around the map - unless the enemies control the entire map, you can use the transitus network to move from your home base to a friendly fort, or from a friendly fort back to your home base from where you can use a wayshrine to leave Cyrodiil.

Walking up to the superpowered enemy guards at a lumber mill, other resource or fort is a slightly slower alternative to traveling by slaughterfish. But it help if you're too far from the water.

Better guards give you an PvP death so you can res at any location your faction hold even if not connected.
An PvE death however let you resurrect at location.

One tricks then your faction hold the entire map and you want the skyshards next to the enemy scroll temples is to suicide at the scroll temple and port to the next enemy inner keep, repeat.

pdblake · October 2021

On a low level toon running can be faster than riding if your riding speed is low.

moo_2021 · October 2021

pdblake wrote: »

On a low level toon running can be faster than riding if your riding speed is low.

can confirm: with movement cp and adept rider I walked faster than horse.

xiphactinus wrote: »

Can anyone who pvp's recommend a starting point to get into it that does not involve endless yawning and walking or is it worth it to keep trying in Cyrodiil, Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

ditch cyrodiil and join battlegrounds!

Vevvev · October 2021

xiphactinus wrote: »

Can anyone who pvp's recommend a starting point to get into it that does not involve endless yawning and walking or is it worth it to keep trying in Cyrodiil, Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Get the Continuous Attack passive in the Assault skill line of the Alliance War to give yourself Major Gallop so your mounted speed is faster.

xiphactinus wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that you cannot fast travel back to base without committing suicide?

Go to a siege merchant and buy a Keep Recall stone. Also use the Transitus Shrine network to fast travel between owned keeps that are connected to each other.

Edit: Also another trick is queueing for the Imperial City or other campaign. If you travel to them and back to the campaign you once were at it'll drop you at your main base. Works vice versa for the Imperial City and getting back to the sewer base.

Larcomar · October 2021

I had a similar experience, albeit a bit in reverse. I tried to do a "trial" one day. Every three steps there was some ridiculous pve mob I had to kill before I could go forwards. I spent hours trying to find other players to kill. Never managed to find one. I'm sure they're in there somewhere but I couldn't help it. I fell asleep at the controller.

On a more serious note, I think you missed the point of Cyrodiil. You went in looking to quest and rp; that's fine but it's not really that sort of zone. If you want to do quests in cyro, head to the towns - Bruma, Crops and Vlas. They're pretty basic but there are some. If you want to actually, you know, PVP, log in late afternoon, follow the crowd and go siege a keep....

Oreyn_Bearclaw · October 2021

The Wayshrine is basically only there to get you out of cyrodiil, and there is one in each of your main bases. The transit shrines are there to get you from keep to keep, but there are limitations based on what you control. Basically you can only pass through what you control. There is one in each base and in every keep in the game. If your line connects to them, you can transport to them. The wayshrine issue is certainly not very intuitive. The Transit shrines make sense once you get a feel for them.

I will also concede that the daily quest board is not very intuitive. The quests are straight forward, but they often don't make sense to simply grab and do directly. You wont get a scroll by yourself. Scouting missions can often be at the opposite end of the map and simply don't make sense to try to do. They are more a long the lines of, "do them if you happen to be in the neighborhood". The capture objective quests are similar. You probably aren't capturing anything alone, but keep the quests in your journal, you will get to them eventually.

The two daily quests make the most sense to actually try to do. One is for kill x number of players by class, the other is basically 4 options: Kill 40 players (easy) Capture 3 keeps (again, follow the zerg and not too bad), capture 9 resources (can be done alone, but usually takes a bit longer to do), capture all 3 towns (I pretty much ignore this one as the third town is usually a huge PITA as its opposite side of the map).

You will spend most of your time on essentially half the map. If you are in EP for example, you are going to spend most of your time in the north east section of the map. You will fight at your own keeps, and the half of the DC and AD keeps that are on your side. Sure you might find yourself in the southwest once in a while if doing an Emp push or perhaps going for an out of the way keep with a small group, but otherwise, you probably wont be there that often unless you really like trying to fight 1vX behind enemy lines, which is not advised for beginners.

I would not worry about quests, rather learn to engage in the combat. Learn where the obvious chokepoints are between your faction and the two others, that is where most of the action will be. If you find yourself riding/walking more than the distance of 1-2 keeps, you are probably doing it wrong.

xiphactinus · October 2021

Thank you all for your input, duly noted!

Walking running is way faster than my mount currently as my character is lvl15, Mounts are truly naff until I've sunk a bit of gold into speeding them up a bit but I think stamina will be the prudent choice early on.
Next on the list of to do is find those transit stones, Keep recall stone thingy and most of all go looking for a fight.

I want to get this character up to speed just in case we get another imp city event so I can use this character to complete the event and also return the favour to a few folk, You know who you are! Plus it seems like a pretty big chunk of the game I'm missing out on so time to dive in. I managed to kill a few of them last time but the ratio was very skewed as I really wasn't prepared for pvp. I'm still running Magsorc as my main so I'm trying Stamsorc for pvp.

Yes there are lots of good guides but I like asking here for advice.

Battlegrounds: I much prefer the idea of a campaign setting, Taking keeps etc, Controlling land/resources. I won't completely rule out giving it a try though once my toon is kitted out and has the gist of things.

I will have another crack at it later for sure...After I've stocked up on soul gems.

Indigogo · October 2021

Hopefully one point down the track you can look back and laugh at the time you walked across cyro to pick up a scroll!

Learn to read the map. Look for the little "x" battle symbols to see active fights, port around your keeps and do a quick patrol to catch anyone sieging, go quest in a town. Join a group and stick to crown. Follow callouts in zone chat. After a bit it'll be pretty obvious where your alliance will be trying to attack next.

With travelling when not near a keep you own, and don't have a transit stone, and perhaps you don't want to dead spawn and lose that well buff you picked up, use Get Me Unstuck.

You can use it once per hour, costs the same as wayshrine travel, and will take you back to your gate.

Pauwer · October 2021

Try typing "lfg" and if someone invites, follow and see what they do. Most important: buy and quickslot siege. If you do that, you are already better than 70% of players. You know the ones who light attack the door and yell "siege" in the area chat, but never actually siege.

Larcomar · October 2021

Ok, as you actually want to try it, let me give you a more constructive response. There's a lot of good stuff up above about getting around cyrodiil, but it might be worth taking a step back. If you just rock up in a random campaign in the middle of the day you're not going to have a good time.

Where to pvp? - there's 3 campaigns. (Ignore blackreach). Icereach - the "baby" pvp campaign for sub 50 characters; Ravenwatch - the newbie campaign, no cps, ltd sets; and Grayhost - cp active, all sets etc. If you can I'd join a guild that runs baby pvp sessions in Icereach and do a few sessions - its a good place to learn the basics. That's how I got started. Don't go in solo though - it's very quiet. Failing that, Ravenwatch might be an easier place to begin pvping, plus you dont need to adjust cp all the time.

When to pvp? - between the declining pvp population and the new mmo, it's quite quiet at the moment until the schools come out / people get off work. UK time (I think you're UK) it usually hots up 5, maybe 5.30. Somewhere round 7-8 though you get into prime time - it's busier but there are queues to get in, ball groups show up and there's a lot of lag. I prefer the shoulder, but ymmv. Daytime, its not worth going in anymore.

What to do? - Unless you're set on becoming a 1vX god and are following some streamers build which promises that it's "OP!" I'd really recommend doing some casual zerging first and - if you're horse is still very slow - playing defense rather than heading off into enemy territory. Look in chat for people calling out that Fort X is under attack (UA), use the transitus shrine to get there and get ready for a fight. Afterwards, follow the crowd, take some resources and maybe go pay them back.

Builds - PVP builds are very personal. I find the stuff online not that helpful. For a new pvp'r I'd seriously recommend building quite tankily, even on a stamsorc. Absolute min 25k health, 25k resist 1500 sustain. But people will focus you a lot less and youll live longer if you go for 30k health, 30k resists and maybe a bit more sustain. To do that youll want to wear a defensive set (pariah is good) as well as an offensive set. 2 handed beats DW for pvp imho.

How to play - Everyones different, but youll probably find it easier to start with if you focus on staying mobile (a stamsorc strength) and attacking at range, at least if there are multiple enemies around. If you go charging into a big group you wont live long. Save the melee for the stragglers. Plus if you keep a bow on your back bar, roll dodge (which you want to do if you're getting focused) will give you major expedition allowing you to avoid damage and escape.

Key skills to have - front bar, stuff like dizzying swing and executioners are staples and your streak is an unblockable stun. Back bar, you need alot of defense and self healing so hurricane, vigor and probably dark deal. Like I say Id slot a ranged attack to give you more options - crystal weapon is pretty strong but can a bit janky. Finally, carry siege. Ballistas for knocking down walls / doors, meatbag catapults (or flame ballistas if you can't get) for shooting at people from the ramparts, and oil for pouring over enemies at the door of the keep.

Hope that helps

larc

ps - you dont *have* to have a sep toon for pvp. Esp if your main is a magsorc. They do pretty well, esp in casual skirmishing. Slap on some impen/well fitted shacklebreaker and crafty alfiq, spam force shock, crystal shards and mages wrath on enemies, and then streak away if you get focused, you get a surprising amount of kills....

wheresbes · October 2021

I do complete those quests incidentally while capturing keeps/roaming with a group. Quests that are more PVE-friendly are those you find in Bruma and other cities IMO. You definitely need speed in Cyrodiil, the place is sooo vast. If max level horse is not an option, there's the ring of the wild hunt or adept rider as someone already suggested.

xiphactinus · October 2021

No I don't need a sep toon but for me it is easier and more enjoyable to lvl up a new one and I'm not overly keen on changing much on my main as she's pretty good as she is, plus I'd have to keep re morphing abilities to flit between the two and that isn't going to happen. So new toon it is.
As I have just opened up my back bar I was thinking Bow/poison something like Swamp raider which is pretty easy to farm and I already have a purple set in a coffer lvl50 ready to go and it gives a nice boost to poison abilities then a full heavy set of some sort. Currently she's DW on front bar as I've never ran a DW character but two handed is always a possibility as I already have a Warden frost toon that is two handed and that one does some good damage but is just really suited to overland content. No character I have is as effective as the sorc and I feel comfortable using a sorc.

I do have a lvl796cp Imperial vamp nightblade though sat doing nothing and I'm kinda stuck at what to do with her so maybe I could finally utilise the vamp, I set her up just out of curiosity but was underwhelmed at vamps abilities and used imperial to mitigate some of the ability cost. I keep her at stage 3 most of the time for the passives. That's half the problem with this game...So many options and I'm crap at making decisions, I ran her with Vampires kiss in heavy then swamp raider on back bar for that poison boost and VK giving that huge heal after every kill.

Larcomar · October 2021

On swamp raider, I tried it but abandonned it. Its strong for snipe / poison arrow and maybe arrow spray but, because it only buffs poison and disease, it doesn't buff most of your melee attacks (certainly 2h they're physical dmg) or ofc heals. When you factor in that, on stamsorc, you also get a +5% passive to physical damage and ofc a rather tasty ranged spammable, I think there are better sets to put him in - NMA, even automaton etc. It's a lot of wpn dmg on snipe / poison arrow though. Note that snipe got nerfed pretty hard a wqhile back though - it's not what it was.

Your vampblade sounds pretty handy for cyro though. Being able to stealth at the drop of a hat is huge, no run speed penalty and ring of the wild hunt gives you a ton of manoeverability, and stage 3 passives your defence. I found NB very useful to learn on simply because it let me get in, look around and decide where to attack - and ofc to disengage if theings weren't going well. Stamdens are also an excellent class - really tanky with inbuilt minor protection, super heals (and the option to heal off your mag pool) and great burst with beetle. He's probably my favorite class now. Personally, I'd try them all out, see what suits you. Main thing Id say is build quite tanky to start, and have a ranged option for those zergs.

xiphactinus · October 2021

NMA New moon acolyte? Pretty sure I can craft that. I definitely prefer crafting to farming stuff, getting sick of rng in these games so most of my toons are in crafted gear except my warden.

I just couldn't decide what to commit to regarding the vamp so I kinda just left it, Maybe I'll spend a bit of time getting some gear and try her out again as she's already levelled up. Would you stick to DW on the NB or go two handed with bow on the back bar? I'm pretty sure she's set up for magicka with inferno staffs presently but its no biggie to swap her about a bit. I'd prefer a stam build as most of my other toons are magicka based.

I'll keep on track with my stamsorc though as I like the abilities that come with sorc, Only thing I'll change is ditch the daggers for a greatsword instead, all the skill lines are unlocked and I've got plenty of time to sort things out.

Thank you, I have a much clearer picture of what I need to do now.

Larcomar · October 2021

Np

On 2h vs DW for the NB, I prefer 2h but on the NB you've got a spammable, execute, gap closer and source of snare removal already from class lines - so you cd probably go either way.

I like 2h because of rally for the heal + major brutality, prefer executioner to killers blade, and find stampede more reiable than ambush in lag. Mainly though it just looks way cooler. Im not a DW fan. I think most builds go 2h but Im sure DW wd be viable.

Bottom line though, try different stuff out and see what works for you. PVP isnt like pve where there's this sor tof set meta. What works for you might well be differnet to other people. Thats half the fun of it

edit - yes and bow back bar. I like an infused caustic arrow with wpn dmg enchant - hit someone with it, it gives you a nice burst window, plus a ranged execute you can use against those pesky people running away. And being able to roll dodge into cloak with 4 seconds of major exped is great if you need to make a sharp exit.