How to make hard to kill pvp toon

Kwik1 · February 2022

Just wondering, if I wanted to create a character that wanted to do all the quests in Cyro/IC, and just focus on survivability, what class/gear/attributes would I focus on? Not worried so much about attacking other players, I am just looking for the hardest to kill character and what gear he would wear while still being able to kill PvE mobs.

deleted221106-002999 · February 2022

Stealth/speed.

Often you get stuck in combat which means you can't mount so being fast on your virtual feet helps with drying the yellow paint splashed across your virtual back.

Enough stamina to break free/roll-dodge and to maintain sprinting.

Something like fiords(Eastmarch set) and darkstride (rivenspire) are quite effective in this regard - [edit] essentially most pve 'farming' setups[/edit]. Swift jewelry trait. You can run/sprint very fast and pretty much across the map. Lots of other variations on this basic idea.

Invisibility potions that provide extra speed are handy for non-nightblades.

Going tanky is not such a great idea for your purpose - you tend to get cc'd and zerged down.

edit: editing

fred4 · March 2022

Glad you asked. You can't beat my magblade for that:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=429631

This is the actual build I run and PvP with. As I'm writing and looking this over, I'm starting to realize what an expensive build that is. Caluurion is somewhat hard to farm. Tri-stat (Hakeijo) enchants are hard to farm or expensive. Zoal requires farming in PvP. It's a catch-22. Let me, therefore, elaborate on what's important.

I agree with Comrade_Ogilvy. Stealth and speed are the ONLY things that will extricate you from fights completely and prevent you from getting killed. A streaking sorc can be pursued and hunted down. An outright tank build often attracts the attention of multiple players and will be killed or harrassed endlessly by persistent players. The same with an endlessly mistforming vamp build. Some PvPers will see that as an affront and they won't let you go.

There are multiple ways of achieving stealth. One is to be a stage 4 vamp. When you sprint for 3 seconds, you become invisible. If you are built to sustain sprinting, that may well be enough for your purposes, on any class. I used to love Coward's Gear, as it automatically gives you Major Expedition while sprinting.

I want to note that invisibility is much better than crouching. Invisibility breaks aggro with any NPCs you are currently engaged with. It also means you flat out can't be seen, even if you are right under someone's nose, unless that player uses active detection methods. In other words, you want to be a stage 4 vamp or you want to be a nightblade. I suppose the last option is to be a streaking sorc and use an invisibility potion, once you have gained some distance. Forget inivisibility potions otherwise. There are things that knock you out of invisibility and potions can only be used every 45 seconds. You need to be able to recloak, if something goes awry.

As a nightblade, even a stamblade, there is one set that has crazy synergy, but with being a vamp nightblade in particular. That set is Darloc Brae. It fixes all your sustain issues, although it doesn't do quite enough to keep you at maximum speed in cloak. You need to crouch as well as cloak, with that set. You need to be a vamp or wear Night's Silence / Shadow Dancer to get around the crouch speed penalty and you won't have quite enough mag sustain to keep up cloak and Race Against Time (for the speed) with Darloc Brae alone. It's also an awkward set that is a hassle to operate.

I prefer just being a plain magblade, as per my above build. Let's elaborate on why that works and what's important here:

Cloak has a lot of synergy with speed. You need both. You need to be faster than the other player for cloak to become most effective. I mean it. This is palpable. Don't skimp on speed. You want to be at speed cap. In combat as well as outside of combat. My build is at speed cap outside of combat without Race Against Time, and in combat with Race Against Time. How? We need to get to +100% speed. That's 15% (Wild Hunt) + 10% (Celerity CP) + 25% (Concealed Weapon on same bar as Cloak) + 21% (3x gold Swift jewelry) + 30% (Race Against Time) = +101%.
You need to sustain Cloak inside of combat as well as outside. Yes, that last part is significant too, because of the vagaries of the combat engine. Without going into too much detail, that's why we're NOT wearing a mag sustain set, but are getting sustain from being a Breton, Atro mundus, very high regen drink (Hissmir Fisheye Rye), flat sustain (+90) from CP, 6x light armor and Siphoning Attacks. If you find you need more sustain on your race, then start adding Alliance War Support skills on the back bar, notably the Barrier ultimate, instead of Spell Wall, and make sure you have the Alliance War Support passives (+10% mag regen for each skill slotted).
I use Hissmir Fisheye Rye for the stam sustain too. You want to be able to dodge roll. This is why I also wear all Well Fitted. Wearing Impenetrable gear would be nice, but I find it less important, this patch.
Zoal + Slippery CP is anti-gank and anti-zerg protection. This is a really nice set. I can't really think of better. You might join an IC farming group for that.
Juggernaut also works as anti-gank protection. Very high-damage gankers can hit through the threshold, so it never procs, but it's still a good set to save you while you make efforts to cloak away. When you're talking to an NPC quest giver, be sure to be on your back bar. You might also divert points into health via your attributes.
Caluurion is obviously purely for PvP. You could wear something else.
Race Against Time is a must. You need it for the speed and to clear roots / snares and get into cloak.

fred4 · March 2022

Of course, if I were to take your question literally, then you only want to be hard to kill, rather than impossible. High speed cloaking nightblades aim to be impossible to kill outside of being actively hunted by an experienced player with detection potions and detection skills. Groups that constantly spam Revealing Flare and Bombard / Acid Spray are also a bane to nightblades. All the same, if you are skittish and don't want to engage at all, a nightblade should be your best bet. However, despite Juggernaut and Zoal, which do work well it has to be said, my build is probably not the outright best to survive the initial onslaught of a gank. That would be more an outright tank. Even though health regen has been nerfed, you could build something with a lot of passive tankiness and healing by combining Gaze Of Sithis with other sources of health regen and tankiness, for example. I dare say, though, that without knowing how to play a PvP tank, which is kind of an art unto itself, you will also be killed. It will just take a bit longer. In the past there have been werewolf builds that seemed completely unassailable. I'm not sure whether that's still a thing.

Kwik1 · March 2022

It was really just about survival and honestly I never thought about just being fast and cloaking.

Thanks for the info and I will look at this from how you described and see

Necrotech_Master · March 2022

a lot of doing quests in IC is mostly just being aware of your surroundings, because its very easy to get into combat with all the NPCs that are around, or stumble into another player (who you dont know is questing or pvper, and i think a lot of people tend to try to "shoot first ask questions later" since its harder to communicate with enemy players)

having a stealth setup will definitely make it easier (i have a NB set up for speed stealth with huge sustain for cloaking)

this is what i use:

3pc night terror (stealth bonus)
5pc darloc brae (stealth bonus and sustain)
ring of the wild hunt (speed)
at minimum stage 1 vamp (passive to remove stealth speed penalty)

the last few open slots you can use pretty much anything in place (i use 2 pc of trainee for the bonus stats, and then some arena weapons to help with combat so its not a full potato)

with this setup i am basically at speed cap while in stealth, sneak costs nothing, and darloc brae refills any stam lost from sneak and sustains basically spamming cloak (i also have around 2100 mag recov too)