I survive well with 2 offensive sets and an offensive mythic and 26k health. I do play a Templar though, so I don’t kill as many people as I use to 🙄

It depends on what I'm doing. For CP Cyro I can get away with a defensive mythic and 2 offensive sets. Then slot CP for whatever defense I need. For BGs, I'll swap 1 offensive set to 1 defensive set. I'm definitely not as tanky as some others, but I prefer to play more offensively, and my survivability is still pretty good.

Unless you're playing in an organized group, or you're lucky enough to have a healer around, there's not that much cross healing going on anymore. People just have so many defensive options. And with decent damage, the self healing is juicy.

I don't see the point going to defensive and not being able to kill anything

Defense is key. Build for the right defence and sustain then aim for the most possible damage possible with the defence and sustain setup. Resto staff is amazing. Rally cry is amazing set and bloodspawn plus resto staff ulti makes a mean combi to survive crazy beatings. The game is very tailored to impossible solo killings so survival and targeting together same target is win. Dead dps aint killing anything. Except nightblades there crazy atm dmg and healing in the right hands that is.

The best defense in pvp in this game is not too pvp in this game.

I won't say how I build, because it really differs between characters. I'm probably more defensive and sustainy, usually, than many (more competitive) players, but I also have a stamplar that has from 5.5K to 8.5K spell damage, e.g. it's all spell damage. That hasn't felt too bad. As an IC player splitting my time between farming Tel Var and PvP I tend to be defensive or elusive in that place, though.

I think the game has shifted to where, yes, you can be tanky, but you need to stack multiple heals for that more than in the past. This goes towards you preferring resto over 1H+S. It can also mean Mara or it can mean combination options that are both offensive and defensive. One of my favorite ones lately is Draining Shot with a Blackrose bow. Rallying Cry is the poster child for an armor set that is both offensive and defensive.

You can tell when people don't have enough healing. Maybe it's all easy on stamden, which I don't play. On other classes I find that I'm always looking for what healing options I can stack, more so than in past patches. I think that is the reason why damage feels high to some. It's not the highest damage we've had, but it's also not the highest healing from single abilities. Among my builds it's only the stamplar where I sometimes go "whoa, Rally / Honor the Dead" really works well. That said, I haven't played really high weapon / spell damage characters in the past, so don't know how that stacks up historically.

Syiccal wrote: »

Yea I tend to prefer resto over blocking, blocking eats way to much stam, when I can just grab a quick resto heavy get major mending and heal my way through it, resto ult is clutch to alot of the time...I spend my time in bgs.

It really depends on how you build. The key to blocking in PvP is either to do it judiciously or to get the block cost down. Sturdy medium armor with 1H+S is a thing. If you're a DK that can be very effective. I've had block cost down to about 400. All Sturdy medium armor, Steadfast's Mettle back bar and Defensive Stance basically gets you there. You're in medium. You can have an offensive front bar. This type of build doesn't really give up that much damage and is not in fact very tanky, except when you turtle up and block on the back bar, you're suddenly extremely tanky.

as a mag sorc you can't use defensive sets, the damage is already laughable with offensive ones

taugrim wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

DPS: No defense unless it's included for free. Every set you wear should have damage

Mostly agree.

Some sets do double duty, e.g. Markyn Ring of Majesty boosts offense and defense.

I do think there's value to sustain sets, such as backbarable sets such as Wretched Vitality. You can't do anything if you run dry.

To the OP, as a melee I
1. run 26.2k armor frontbar, 31.5k backbar
2. I put enough Health to have 30k self-buffed
3. run a damage shield with my spammable Brawler (after getting Perfected Titanic Cleave)

#3 has made a huge difference in survivability. I tend to have ~58% damage taken relative to damage done. That ratio used to be closer to 67%.

Brawler builds are a funny thing in PvP. You might nuke a group with Corrosive Armor, if you're lucky. Such builds can be very strong in low MMR BGs and against groups of bad players in general. I run a stamsorc Brawler from time to time. The main issue is that Brawler eats up a lot of sustain. Stamsorc is probably ideal, since you can Streak (escaping) or Dark Deal when you run out.

There is something lacklustre about it in competitive play, though, e.g. especially 1v1 for obvious reasons. Too low damage and small shield. It does have some pressure as people constantly have to get through that shield while they take damage, but you won't kill good people with Brawler spam and, if you're not spamming, you're not shielding. The shield isn't very large. It's the ability to refresh that shield while dealing damage that makes it half decent, but not up to PvE levels of awesomeness.

I feel very vulnerable against ranged players on my Brawler sorc. I've also noticed that Cyrodiil is actually quite diverse these days. Maybe ZOS are doing something right after all. I ran into a Knight Slayer build among others the other day.

taugrim wrote: »

I play in higher MMR on PC NA.

Brawler is garbage in PVP unless you have Perfected Titanic Cleave maul. In which case you can build to make Brawler scale with damage.

Titanic Cleave goes without saying, but it's good to hear Brawler continues to work for you in higher MMR BGs.

Sergykid wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

taugrim wrote: »

I play in higher MMR on PC NA.

Brawler is garbage in PVP unless you have Perfected Titanic Cleave maul. In which case you can build to make Brawler scale with damage.

Titanic Cleave goes without saying, but it's good to hear Brawler continues to work for you in higher MMR BGs.

nope, it's bad above decent mmr. In high mmr u won't get even two players standing in front of u to make brawler worth it. No proper pressure to kill and no proper defense to survive

Rush of Agony
AOE stun or root (in my case, Arctic Blast)

P.S. you do realize that Brawler provides a damage shield even if it hits no one? And a scaling damage shield when it does?

taugrim wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

taugrim wrote: »

I play in higher MMR on PC NA.

Brawler is garbage in PVP unless you have Perfected Titanic Cleave maul. In which case you can build to make Brawler scale with damage.

Titanic Cleave goes without saying, but it's good to hear Brawler continues to work for you in higher MMR BGs.

nope, it's bad above decent mmr. In high mmr u won't get even two players standing in front of u to make brawler worth it. No proper pressure to kill and no proper defense to survive

Rush of Agony
AOE stun or root (in my case, Arctic Blast)

P.S. you do realize that Brawler provides a damage shield even if it hits no one? And a scaling damage shield when it does?

rush of agony aka one cast of Brawler. And that if those players are in your front and they don't move immediately, and they're not already cc inmune for the pull, of a set with cooldown.

that shield even without a target is definitely not worth the cost, and it just becomes barely worth when hitting one target. Two or more targets hit are too rare to be worth using this ability for that.

Brawler is a good ability, but shines in pve, for example i have a video with Titanic Cleave doing 296k score in Vateshran and with same build soloing Falkreath Hold hardmode.

but in pvp there's too much movement and need for sustain for this ability to be used at its proper potential