Theoryexpert

Healing and the resto staff are incredibly strong in this game. Healers are generally the tanks of pvp, so having strong defensive abilities is going to be key as a healer. Things like sun shield, immovable, rapid maneuvers, etc... As for Shinns comment on full healers, I dont even know what that is. Any build should have a variety of abilities that cover damage, CC, utility, etc... even if their primary focus is on healing. Any build that neglects versatility is not going to be effective overall.

1. Consuming Darkness ultimate 2. No 3. Yes any class can tank or do any role 4. Immovable, Shadow Cloak, Blur, Evasion, Annulment, Low Slash, Sword and Shield Tree, Shadow Tree 5. Puncture

It was hard to gauge anything last beta. According to the stat sheet, all players in cyrodil had roughly the same stats regardless of armor type or where they spent their stat points. It was weird, could have just been a display error, or was actually how it was. The only way to really gauge anything was outside of cyrodil in PVE.

I agree with what you are saying and I prefer to use the term optimization rather than min/max because its easier to comprehend. Optimization does not mean being focused into one role, it means being optimized for whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. If youre trying to be an awesome sniper in zerg battles, but are using two melee weapons, thats pretty suboptimal to the point of idiocy. Also you have to take skill out of the equation when designing builds, that varies from player to player and is not controllable. There will definitely be optimal builds for accomplishing specific goals. There will be top tier 1on1 builds, top tier healing builds, top tier versatile builds, top tier ranged builds, top tier support builds, etc. There are many different ways to play the game, and each way will have optimal and sub-optimal builds.

If you want to stand your ground, either a DK or Templar is great for survival if built for it. If you want to survive by being able to run away than a sorcerror with bolt escape and lightning form is best, followed by nightblade with cloak and cripple.

Nobody knows yet true top tier builds, its all just speculation and logical guessing from limited beta play. As for min/maxing: thats just another way of saying optimizing builds. Optimizing a build is always going to be more effective than one that is non synergetic and makes no sense. And optimization means more in PVP than anywhere else.

Its quite possible that armor becomes stronger the higher your armor is, and that is the reason the overcharged buff occurs so low. A heavy armor wearer with 2000 buffed armor might just be significantly more resillient than a light armor wearer in 1700 buffed armor. We don't know how armor mitigation works.

I agree irons, although I think restoration staff + melee weapon is the strongest 1on1 build for sorc. Sorc is kinda weak on self healing (although havent tested daedric mines) and needs some way to sustain his health. Medium armor is a good choice because surge crits heal, so stacking crit is awesome for a melee sorc who wants self healing. resto staff bar needs entropy, regeneration, surge, and maybe force siphon. This allows the sorc to sustain himself and win a 1on1. Update: I just found a HUGE self healing synergy. Surge is insane self healing on a 2 handed crit build with full medium armor. Crit charge hits like a truck and surge turns it into a massive self heal too! Pretty insane.

No skills in this game are designed to be spammed except execute moves on low health targets. Youll quickly burn your magicka or stamina and be left helpless. The majority of your damage in this game comes from using abilities and white attacks together, not spamming one ability over and over.

Are you sure you can enchant for power? Was that in option in the last beta? Because boosting max magicka/stamina is supposed to raise damage already. I believe they got rid of the power stat. Its now derived from max magicka and max stamina. I think the weapon enchant enrage is the only direct boost to power.

build looks good to me but there are a few issues. You should have fiery grip on your destruction staff bar so that you can fiery grip people into your fire spell range. All of your spells besides force shock are melee range, so you need fiery grip on bar 1. Get rid of lava whip on bar 1 and add fiery grip. For bar 2, lose fiery grip and add lava whip. Now you can shield charge, then lava whip to knock them off balance. Good luck.

Invisibility is only half of the benefit from shadow cloak, its worth using even if you are revealed IMMEDIATELY for the following reasons. 1. It removes a dot on you 2. It activates shadow barrier which gives you almost 2/3rds as much armor and spell resistance as lightning form for 4 seconds! 3. It gives you 15-30% stamina regeneration for 6 seconds That is reason enough to cloak every 6 seconds, regardless of whether your invisibility is revealed right away or not. Shadow cloak is one of the best defensive skills in the game, just like sun shield and lightning form.

if you get revealed, you can recloak. You can also dodge right after or before cloak to prevent getting revealed. Getting revealed isnt a huge deal.

Good nightblade will be able to outplay mage light. Mage light has only 12 meters range, good nightblade will observe that range and render the spell ineffective.

You want at least a couple magicka abilities to use your magicka pool, otherwise it will just sit there. You should have something to use your magicka pool at least a little bit.

Ya just use bound armor, lightning form, and if you want to wear 1 piece of heavy: immovable.

Going max stamina is totally viable. I plan to do it myself. I do not think you can create a good build without using class skills though, which use Magicka. You can easily put 30 in stamina, and 0 in magicka, and still have enough magicka for some important class abilities.

Mandalore, if you are going to use mark target, you also need to use blur and evasion or lock them down with stuns and kite, otherwise you are going to die just as fast as your target.

Maybe it's not surprising to you, but 90% of the builds people make for pvp are missing several things on these guidelines such as leaving an ability slot open for purge or rapid maneuver.

We can only guess for now.

I see a lot of people throwing out random builds that are missing very important pieces that can potentially lead them to being ineffective in pvp. I'd like to share some basic guidelines when designing a pvp build that will be effective. You do not have to follow all of the principles that I mention, but following most of them would probably help a lot. You don't have to have everything I mention on each of your weapon bars, but have them on at least one of your two bars. -Some kind of defensive ability -Some kind of offensive ability -Some type of crowd control (stun, disorient) -A snare or immobilize -An open skill slot for potentially must have pvp skills like Purge or Rapid Maneuvers -Synergy between your class, armor type, weapon type, and skills -Some flexibility in case certain abilities are better or worse than you imagined Good luck!

Not sure how dodge/evasion/blur works yet exactly. The non damage effect of spells/abilities should remain un missable to prevent RNG. Also, your builds look fine but you need to leave room for purge and rapid maneuver which will be essential in pvp.

You need to leave room for pvp skills like purge and rapid maneuver which will probably turn out to be essential in pvp.

This is really useful info. The pvp skills are much cheaper than expected and I think will be used quite a bit.

Only if hes out of stamina. Otherwise he can use the CC break.