I am on a rural area, WAN, with a static IP, typical down/up speeds at 6pm: 110mbs down/25mbs up, 21ms latency, no packet loss. My Xbox X is wirelessly connected to a 6 month old Linksys router. Speed tests at my Xbox are 60ishmbs down/15-20mbs up, 27-40ms latency, no packet loss. These are averages from multiple tests run in a row. I have my Xbox set in the DMZ on my router. My NAT is open. My Xbox is connected to a 52 inch gaming HDR TV on Gaming Mode. I have the performance option setting turned on in the options menu. Hard wire from router to Xbox is not an option but to test this possibility, I ran a hard wire from my router 25 feet to my Xbox and it made ZERO difference.

I find that most of the time, all of my toons are completely unplayable in Cyrodiil PVP. From between 5pm to 10pm, CST, it is laughable. Jabs on Templar does not fire, or when is does fire, no damage is registered, or even worse, it fires 2 seconds after it was cast. Both my stam and mag Templars are basically unplayable at peak times. Getting on a horse for any toon varies from taking 1 second to 4 or more seconds. Run to a keep door, hit A to go in door, and my toon stands there for 4 seconds before anything happens. I cannot use Dizzy Swing/Wrecking Blow two hand skill on a Stam Sorc. Forget trying to heavy attack. None of those fire. Try getting off a Crystal Weapon and a light attack at 6pm CST using my specs. How come my attack does not fire? Trying to drink a pot, well sometimes that doesn't happen.

I researched combat mechanics. There is supposed to be a 1 second delay between skills. So why is there a 2 to 4 second delay sometimes? Why does a skill completely not fire at all? If there is a 1 second delay between skills, then how does a player in 1v1 combat fire one light attack, one skill, an Ultimate, a heavy attack, another skill, and three procs, in less than one second, at the same time that my toon is taking 2 or more seconds for a skill to fire? How does that happen? How does my toon with 29k resistances with 31.5k health die in less than one second and how is it possible that the player that killed me fire off all that in less than 1 second? I don't even have time to hold block or cast a shield or do anything. The time to kill in this game is beyond ridiculous. And I'm not even talking about a whatever the lastest ganker meta build coming out of stealth and killing me.

We now have players who are running around with 20+ people attacking them and they are not only surviving, but getting procs off and killing people while doing it. I can't tell you how many times that I have clearly been well out of range of a Dark Convergence going off, but I still get pulled. Or how about drinking an Immovable pot and 3 seconds later getting pulled into a Dark Convergence. What happened to CC immunity? Don't roll dodge, you just get jerked right back right? That's funny. Stand and hold block right? Someone gets killed, and the 6 other procs fire off and kill me anyway. As a result, my play style has mostly changed to being a ranged player now. Forget stamina and melee toons, They are unplayable.

[snip]

I watch Youtube videos of some popular players and see them casting more than one skill in less than 1 second all the time. I privately message them and ask them about their connection and they are on a fiber optic ISP. Go figure. It must be nice to play this game in PVP and your game work. I painstakingly copied one of those popular Youtuber builds, down to every last detail. I watch them get in 1v2 fights in the video and kill both players in 10 seconds. I watch them rip around and run around and jump up and down and dodge roll and cast heals and cast skills. Then I go and play and my play experience is nothing like theirs, even though I practiced combos for over a week on test dummies. So this begs the question: Is the fix to PVP lag is that everyone needs to be on an equal level ISP service?

To deal with the lag, several months ago, I built a MagDK heavy attack build and did fairly well as I placed 13th overall in the February Grey Host campaign on the NA server. However, heavy attacks, according to ZOS, take 2.25 seconds to complete, right? Most of the time, heavy attacks on that build at peak time take 3 or more seconds to complete. After ZOS nerfed the Sergeant's Mail set last update, the heavy attack build that I used is mostly useless now. I pull my trigger and hold for a heavy attack and it goes off for 3 to 4 seconds, on a skill that is supposed to complete in 2.25 seconds, and of course, that proc adding 3136 weapon and spell damage to my heavy attack, it does not work. I do 40% less damage with that build than I was doing back in February, because of that change. And it wasn't like I was killing people in 2 seconds. So why did ZOS change that set, a set that has been in the game for years now? Hey ZOS, your change does not work. Further, there is exactly ZERO explanation of how that proc is actually supposed to work. At what point is the 3136 weapon and spell damage increase supposed to proc? How does it proc? How does that affect the damage of the heavy attack? Does that 3136 damage increase also affect skills that active on the player you are attacking?

I had hoped that the High Isle release, and supposed server update, that was suppoed to take place on console would fix the lag issues that ZOS claims to fix, however, I played last night, and I logged out in frustration because once again, I am in 1v1 combat and my skills DO NOT FIRE, so I get killed in 2 seconds or less, and then some punk T-Bags me cause he thinks he just wiped me when the truth is I couldn't even pull block or fire a skill or do anything, and he killed me in 2 seconds with 31.5k health, fully buffed at the time of the attack with over 31k resistances. Yeah, that is a real fun playing experience. I feel like I have done everything that I can do on my end to make my playing experience optimal. So what is ZOS going to do about this?

[edited for bashing]