Theoryexpert

Very good logical analysis. I agree with most everything you said.

Templar Ultimate Healer Class: Templar PVP Battlehealer Race: Argonian Armor: 7/7 Heavy Health: 30 Magicka: 17 Stamina: 2 Restoration Staff Steadfast Ward Rushed Ceremony Regeneration or Grand Healing (small scale or large scale pvp) Cleansing Ritual or Purge Rune Focus Rite of Passage or Barrier Restoration or Destruction Staff Eclipse Entropy Force Siphon or Force Shock Sun Shield Equilibrium Nova This is an incredibly powerful PVP healer. Survival is the number one focus for a pvp healer, because you are usually the primary target of the enemy. You have maximum health, and wear heavy armor which further boosts your health regeneration. Being argonian boosts your max health and your self healing by 6%. In addition to all of this, you can use your massive health pool to fuel your spells by using equilibrium. This gives you more magicka than a magicka focused player. Although you do poor damage, you can outlast and defeat most other builds in the game through attrition. Sun shield, equilibrium, and self healing are the perfect synergy. Your healing bar is perfect for pvp, having no cast times on anything. You have steadfast ward for clutch saves on people who are near death. Follow steadfast ward with rushed ceremoney. The combination of these two spells can bring someone back from nearly dead to a safe zone. You have regeneration for a mana efficient heal, which can be replaced with grand healing in large battles. You also have the ability to cleanse negative effects on your allies by cleansing ritual, and also create a zone of control with Rune focus. All of your stamina is used for CC breaks and dodge rolls, giving you optimal uptime. I can't think of a more effective PVP healer.

The best role of a Dragon Knight in PVP is going to be a group buffing, zone controlling and disrupting, pvp tank. Some people call this a bruiser. You wont have the high damage of a sorcerror or nightblade, or the healing of a templar, but you will be invaluable to you group by bringing several powerful group buffs, control zones with ash cloud and fiery grip, and be harder to kill then just about any other class as long as Magma Armor is available. This is probably the strongest class in large scale pvp where you can fiery grip people into your zone of control, and the rest of your team focus fires and instantly kills them. Class: Dragon Knight PVP Bruiser Race: Nord or Orc 7 Heavy Armor 2 Magicka 30 Health 17 Stamina Primary Bar Ash Cloud Fiery Grip Searing Strike Free Choice: Inferno, Critical Charge, Stonefist, Purge, Rapid maneuver Immovable Magma Armor Secondary Bar Momentum Critical Charge Free Choice: Purge, Reverse Slash or Dark Talons or Dragons Blood or Lava Whip Free Choice: Obsidian Shield, Rapid Maneuver Molten Weapons Dragon Knight Standard This build is incredibly good. You are extremely mana efficient and have complete control over where a fight takes place. Survivability is extremely good, as well as group buffs and aoe CC. In single combat you want to charge an enemy or stay put and then create a zone of control with ash field. Use fiery grip to make sure the enemy can not leave your zone of control. From here you searing strike them, switch to bar two and cast all of your self buffs. You force them to fight in your control zone doing moderate damage but taking very little in return. You easily win against most other builds. In group combat, you do the same thing, create a control zone and pull people into it. You can also searing strike multiple people and CC them with dark talons. If you ever get in trouble, just use magma armor, and rapid maneuver to adjust your positioning. This is a top tier pvp build with awesome zone control and survivability.

It has become very clear to me that optimal pvp roles in this game are very clearly defined for each of the classes. Although these roles are not strict, they are optimal. There is plenty of room to create unique builds, but I do believe the best roles for each class in pvp have been discovered: Assault Classes: Sorcerror: Raw Damage, AOE Damage, Mobility and Zone Negation Nightblade: Single Target Damage and Control, Massive Healing Debuff, Main Assist for Group Support Classes: Dragon Knight: Group Buffs, Zone Control, PVP Tank, Templar: Healing, Zone Control, PVP Tank Overall every role is equally valuable. The nightblade is an interesting case because it is clearly the most valuable class to have in small scale pvp (1on1 to 4on4) due to its single target damage, lockdown, and absolutely massive -75% healing debuff. Once you get to 4on4, the class roles are equalized, and once you go beyond that the nightblade starts becoming slightly less useful, especially in zerg warfare. The Dragon Knight is somewhat the opposite, being less useful in small scale PVP where being pulled out of position by a fiery grip won't mean certain death, the group buffs effect less people, and the dragon knight can be ignored if he uses magma armor. However the dragon knight becomes the strongest class of all in zerg pvp due to the ability to control a zone with ash cloud and pull enemies into a horrible position with fiery grip which in zerg combat will spell nearly certain death, and also go nearly invulnerable with magma armor to prevent their own death and tank. The templar and sorcerror class roles seem to stay steady at all sizes of pvp combat. Small Scale PVP Group Class Importance 1. Nightblade 2. Sorcerror/Templar 4. Dragon Knight Large Scale PVP Group Class Importance 1. Dragon Knight (Front Line) 2. Sorcerror/Templar (Behind Dragon Knights) 4. Nightblade (Flanks) In large scale pvp I see the following strategy being ideal: Everyone should be on voice chat, tanks in front line (mostly dragon knights), mid line is hard hitting ranged (mostly sorcerrors), in the rear is healers (mostly templars), and on the flanks are the stealthers (mostly nightblades). The dragon knights fiery grip enemies into the front line, and all the ranged focus fire them for instant kills. The front line does not charge the enemy front line, but rather grips them into zones of control set up by the dragon knights and templars (ash cloud, rune focus). The ranged also fires AOE attacks at the enemy front line to soften them, but most kills come from fiery grip into control zones and focus fire. The nightblades on the flanks pick off people with coordinated stealth attacks. This type of coordinated group could easily defeat an uncoordinated army twice its size.

There is no doubt that nightblade is going to be one of the strongest single target damage classes in the game. It will probably have the advantage in a 1 on 1 battle against most if not all other classes. It will also be very useful in group fights as an assassin. The nightblade is the only class to bring a -75% healing debuff and mark target. This makes nightblades the "main assist" in pvp. Nightblades are also the most difficult class to kill in pvp due to shadow cloak, their evasive fighting style and consuming darkness. This will be the most frustrating class to fight against, hands down, due to all the sneaky tricks up their sleave. Considering the best roles of a nightblade in pvp, I think the following build will be hands down one of the best in the game. PVP Assassin Nightblade 6 light 1 medium Breton 30 magicka 17 stamina 2 health You can also do a variant of this build with more stamina and less magicka using more or all medium armor and using a race like khajit, or bosmer if you want to maximize your stealth to ensure you always get the opener. I personally prefer the light armor variant because it allows more uses of shadow cloak but the medium armor variant is better for players who actually want to sneak around and maximize their white attack dps. 7 medium khajit 17 magicka 30 stamina 2 health Bar 1 (Primary combat bar) Dual Wield or 2 Hand Cripple Sparks or Momentum orAssassins Blade or Reverse Slash Teleport Strike or Critical Charge Free Choice: Purge/Rapid Maneuver/Strife Evasion Death Strike Bar 2 (Opening bar, buffs/debuffs, and ranged options) Resto Staff or Bow Mark Target Shadow Cloak Blur Haste Veiled Strike Ultimate I truly believe this will be the strongest pvp assassin nightblade build in the game.

Just want to let you know that Ive updated the build to an even more powerful form. The last build we discussed is still awesome but there is one extremely important change that I made. For our ultimate we use negate magic, quite possibly the best ultimate in the game. Let me explain Negate magic is the only offensive dispell in the game. It is also an AOE silence and its morph heals you for 12% max health and magicka for every dispell (not sure if it stacks). Not only that, but this ultimate counters EVERY other ultimate in the game. Lets say you were fighting a dragon knight and he uses magma armor. Hes now practically invulnerable for 15 seconds and you had no choice but to try to bolt escape away, and if hes good he will just fiery grip you back. With negate magic, as soon as he pops magma armor we can instantly dispell it and also gain several massive passive buffs from the dark magic tree as well as silence him for 10 seconds or force him to dodge roll out, wasting massive stamina. Negate magic is the best ultimate in the game in my opinion, but the timing of its use is critical. I also improved upon the old build by turning bar 2 into a dual purpose buff/execute bar. We use bar 2 to buff ourselves, then quickly switch back to bar 1. However, when the enemy gets under 50% health we cast immovable and then switch to bar 2 to finish them off. The finishing combo once they are under 50% health is mages fury, then critical charge into reverse slash spam until they get double executed from mages fury explosion + reverse slash. Its an absolute beastly buff/execute bar now. If they hit their oh shit button, you negate magic and finish them off. Here is the updated build. I believe this melee battlemage is stronger than a range focused destruction staff sorcerror in small scale pvp, but the destruction staff ranged sorcerror is much stronger in large scale pvp where they can bombard enemies from far away with massive AOE. Ultimate PVP 2H Melee Battlemage Redguard 6 Medium 1 Heavy 17 Magicka 2 Health 30 Stamina Bar 1: Primary combat bar Bolt Escape Critical Charge Lightning Form Free Choice: (Rapid Maneuver/Purge/Daedric Curse/Entropy/Evasion/Silver Bolts/Cleave) Immovable Negate Magic Bar 2: Buff and Execution bar. Always activate immovable before switching to bar 2 Momentum Critical Charge Reverse Slash Mages Fury Surge Negate Magic or Soulstrike I truly think this battlemage will be one of the best pvp setups in the game.

Amazing post Thal, I want to thank you for compiling this information. Now to respond to some of the other posts in this thread Ill start with a question then reply using quote:Max stamina and Max mana effect weapon damage and spell damage according to the tooltip when you place attribute points, but do gear buffs and passives for +max stamina/magicka actually raise weapon and magick damage as well? This is an important question, because if its true, it means +max stam/magicka can also be called +damage. If you put max attribute into magicka you have 1380 Magicka at level 50. But this is only the beginning. Tons of passives give + magicka including:Gift of Magnus (racial passive): +12%Jewelry that increases your max magicka: +X% per piece x3Armor Enchants/Glyphs: +X per piece x7Magicka Flood (nightblade passive): +8%If we are conservative and guess that jewelry is a 4% max magicka raise, and that the flat amount on armor is +50 then: thats almost +32% max magicka right there and +350 from armor, and these are conservative numbers. That puts your pool at 2283 using very conservative numbers (although using powerful passives like gift of magnus and magicka flood).Spell cost reduction we have the following (using a nightblade breton again as a min/max example)-21% cost from light armor-3% from breton-12% from jewelry (-4% x 3)Thats -36% spell cost. Now this is a seriously min/maxed breton nightblade, but you can see the kind of magicka we can really get by min/maxing even using conservative estimates.2283 pool-36% spell cost103 Magicka Regen per 2 seconds (4.5% magicka recovery every 2 seconds (did not gear for regen in this example, geared for max magicka and spell reduction min/max)So lets go to shadow cloak: 56 magicka = 448 magicka at level 50 = 287 magicka after 36% cost reductionI can cast shadow cloak 8 times before going out of magicka with a min maxed build and 0 regeneration (0 magicka regen while cloaked anyways, which makes this type of min/maxing perfect for a nightblade who dont benefit as much from +magicka regen).In a pvp battle where I am uncloaked for 20 seconds this build regens 1030 magicka. That is about 3300 magicka to be used in this pvp battle. That is about 12-14 spells cast and this is not counting magicka bonuses from food or mundus stones. Casting non stop is situational. In a 1on1 you usually want to cast non stop until you are out of magicka (while remaining efficient), but you don't want to do the same with stamina because you need it from reactive defenses (cc break and dodge rolls).

Min Maxing has always made the best builds, in every RPG there is. This game will be no different. The only thing that might change are the mechanics of how to min max. A wide variety of builds will be playable, but only a few handful will be top tier.

I noticed the same thing about heavy attacks, seems like its best to keep using light attacks, unless you land some kind of CC, then use a heavy attack. I don't think ranged heavy attacks can be blocked and reversed to offbalance you, just melee, so that might make ranged heavy attacks more useful.

We don't know exactly how the morphs on bound armor work so it's hard to say which is better right now. The description on this site says the damage bonus is to heavy attacks. If heavy attacks prove to be very useful in pvp, then that may very well be the better morph. Especially considering that the armor bonus may not effect your total armor and just the armor given from bound armor. I made a few more final adjustments to the build to give it some flexibility -Barrier is an option as an ultimate because just slotting the ability gives you +10% magicka regeneration, which is huge! A damage shield is always useful in pvp as well. Also, racial ultimates like power charge may have been removed. -I turned immovable into a flexible skill choice instead. Now that we are in medium armor, and bound armor, and lightning form, immovable is not an absolute must have. We still have our free CC break as well, and not taking immovable would allow us to go 7/7 medium armor and open a skill choice. It is hard to say, immovable may still be the best choice out there, but now we have many more options to explore. This flexible skill choice allows the build to adjust to different circumstances and play styles. -If you take momentum as your flexible skill choice in bar 1, you now don't need a 2 hander equipped for bar 2 and can use a bow to give yourself a ranged option. Here is the variant of the build, having a bow as secondary. 2H Bar Bolt Escape Critical Charge Lightning Form Bound Armor Momentum Overload or Power Charge or Barrier Ranged Bar Bolt Escape Poison Arrow or Snipe Encase Bound Armor Surge Overload or Power Charge or Barrier You can activate surge and then snipe from range, and use encase and bolt escape to maintain range as needed. Once you decide to melee (which might be right away) just switch to the 2 hand bar, use momentum, and charge in. Then activate lightning form and go to town.

Im sure warhorn also adds the filler magicka/stamina when it raises your max amounts, and keeps you at the same ratio. So if you are at 100% then you will be at 100% with the new max. So it essentially gives you 25% magicka and stamina for 30 seconds. You are also very correct about medium armor being best for this build. Also I made one more change to the build. I think bound armor is going to be the best summon for this build for a few reasons. First, it is a permanent toggle, thus lowering our in combat mana useage and making us more efficient. Second, our character is very squishy once immovable and lightning form fall off. If we run out of stamina and magicka, we will be easy to kill. Bound armor makes us significantly more resistant to damage when our buffs are not on. It also has a morph for 25% more armor, which synergizes extremely well with both immovable and lightning form. This ability is a no brainer. So now, all our resources go towards the following. Priority 1: Critical Charge and Bolt Escape to stay on target, out maneuver the enemy, or get away. Priority 2: Immovable and Lightning Form to become immune to CC and be able to absorb large amounts of damage, and have a speed boost Priority 3: Momentum and Surge to maintain extremely high weapon DPS The class is now complete, and focused. I updated the build 2 posts above with the changes.

I have improved the build further with a few important adjustments. 2 Hand PVP Battlemage 5 Medium / 2 Heavy or 6 Medium / 1 Heavy or 4 Medium / 3 Heavy or 7 Medium depending how set bonuses work 25 Magicka 0 Health 25 Stamina Redguard Potion: Health Gear for weapon power. Keep magicka and stamina regen balanced for pvp so that you run out of both at around the same time and also avoid the overcharge debuff. Don't gear for regen, gear for power. Your potion of choice is health because sorcerror have no self healing, and because you have other ways to regain stamina (adrenaline rush) and mana (overload) Enchant weapon for frost so you have a snare (stay on target with 2 gap closers, the 2 sec immobilize morph on critical charge, and the 30% run speed on lightning form). Primary Bar Bolt Escape Critical Charge Lightning Form Bound Armor One Flexible Skill Choice: Immovable or Momentum or Evasion or Winged Twilight or Daedric Curse or Mages Fury or Reverse Slash Ultimate: Barrier or Overload or Power Charge or War Horn Buff Bar: Only use this bar to activate key abilities, then switch back to primary bar. Your second weapon is also a 2 hander, unless you took momentum on your primary bar which would allow you to equip a bow secondary and have a ranged option. Surge Momentum or Bow Skill Rapid Maneuver Bound Armor One Flexible Skill Choice: Encase or Purge or Winged Twilight or Daedric Curse or Mages Fury or Reverse Slash or Bow Skill Ultimate: Barrier or Overload or Power Charge or War Horn You should always be using your primary bar. The buff bar is only to be used before a battle to buff yourself for the fight, or rapidly mid-battle buff yourself within a fight. You get the opener: First summon bound armor and keep it activated. Then cast warhorn for 25% more magicka and stamina, and then buff yourself with momentum and surge. Switch to primary bar and activate immovable. Critical charge at the enemy and then activate lightning form. From here go to town with basic attacks. Use bolt escape to stun them and block a spell, and then critical charge back in. Reactivate immovable and lightning form as needed. Use encase or purge when appropriate. You give them the opener: Be in your primary bar with your bound armor on, and use out of combat regeneration to keep immovable and lightning form up permanently. Wait for a stealthed enemy to engage you. As soon as they engage, you will be immune to their stun, now critical charge them if they are at range or bolt escape into a critical charge if they are at melee range. As soon as they are immobilized by critical charge, quickly change bars and activate surge and momentum, then switch back to primary bar. Reactivate immovable and lightning form as needed. Use encase or purge when appropriate. You are caught unprepared, in a bad position (dragon knight fiery grips you in a group battle), or in an unfair fight (1on2, 1onX) and need to escape: Break their stun, then bolt escape and switch to the buff bar. Activate rapid maneuvers and run away while using bolt escape as needed. Try to get to teamates or to friendly NPC's or far enough away to mount up.

Looks good. A few things I want to mention: Daedric Curse is 28m range so it will probably be worth casting before critical charge which is 22m range. Second, this class should be excellent, but there is no way to sustain the rotation mentioned. I don't think its possible to regenerate the amount of mana and stamina to keep all buffs on. If we make it through the rotation once, we are lucky. Once out of mana and stamina, I think priority goes to keeping immovable and lightning form on and staying on target with our gap closers and basic attacks.

Canis, you got me thinking. Surge + Momentum is probably going to be quite a lot of bonus damage. You are on to something here, and I think I came up with a solution to get the best out of both of our builds. Just drop our ranged bar 2 and use two 2 handed bars, one main bar and one that you can switch to rapidly to activate momentum and surge then switch back. Here is the build: PVP Battlemage 5 Light Armor 2 Heavy Armor25 Magicka0 Health25 StaminaHigh Elf or RedguardPotion: Health Try to balance stats to keep from getting the overcharged debuff which causes diminishing returns. Balance magicka and stamina regen, and avoid health regen since you aren't a tank. You have no heals or any way to recover health, so health potions are your potion of choice. 2H Critical Charge Daedric Curse Lightning FormBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Overload, Highborn, or Power Charge 2H Bar 2 MomentumSurgeLightning FormBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Overload, Highborn, or Power Charge Activate Immovable and lightning form and keep both of them up permanently. Curse your enemy, then charge and start using your 2 handed basic attacks. Use bolt escape to stun and create a spell absorbing defense when needed, and then charge right back in. Switch to bar 2 to activate surge and momentum for longer fights, then switch right back to bar 1 as fast as possible. Use overload to recover mana. Remember, daedric curse is 28meter range so you can still harass people from range if charging in isnt going to be safe.

Daedric curse is really good damage for the magicka it seems, and its aoe. In addition, having it on your hotbar gives you +10% health regen. Overall I think its more valuable then surge, even on a melee battlemage like me. Surge is still good though and you could definitely use it instead of daedric curse. I think daedric curse would be more fun to use, because you have to recast it every 3.5 seconds, where as surge you recast ever 17 seconds, and fun factor is a factor in my builds. As for mages fury, its a great spell but the problem is that it doesnt hit its potential until a target is low. In PVE its going to be great, might be great in pvp too. If it is Ill use it, its definitely a top candidate.

I didnt have a reason, just enchanted for lightning, since Im already going lightning damage. Charging in, bolt escaping out, and charging right back in is going to be tons of fun! I think I found my class. Here is the updated build. PVP Battlemage 5 Light Armor 2 Heavy Armor25 Magicka0 Health25 StaminaHigh Elf or RedguardPotion: Health Try to balance stats to keep from getting the overcharged debuff which causes diminishing returns. Balance magicka and stamina regen, and avoid health regen since you aren't a tank. You have no heals or any way to recover health, so health potions are your potion of choice. 2H Critical Charge Daedric Curse Lightning FormBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Overload, Highborn, or Power Charge 2H Bar 2 MomentumSurgeLightning FormBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Overload, Highborn, or Power Charge Activate Immovable and lightning form and keep both of them up permanently. Curse your enemy, then charge and start using your 2 handed basic attacks. Use bolt escape to stun and create a spell absorbing defense when needed, and then charge right back in. Switch to bar 2 to activate surge and momentum for longer fights, then switch back to bar 1. Use overload to recover mana.

I put shadow cloak in context multiple times in this thread already. The only reason not to take shadow cloak is if you actually want people to target you and to take damage such as if you are a tank. In this case I see blur/evasion/sparks being far better.

PVP Battlemage 5 Light Armor 2 Heavy Armor17 Magicka17 Health16 StaminaHigh Elf or RedguardPotion: Health Food: StaminaMundus: Stamina Try to balance stats to keep from getting the overcharged debuff which causes diminishing returns. Balance magicka and stamina regen, and avoid health regen since you aren't a tank. 2H Critical Charge Daedric Curse Lightning FormBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Overload Destruction Staff Crystal ShardDaedric CurseEntropyBolt EscapeImmovableUltimate: Highborn Activate Immovable and keep it up permanently. Curse your enemy, then charge him and activate lightning form. Melee the enemy as needed, and also use bolt escape to stun and create a spell defense, then charge right back in. Switch to destruction staff as an alternate ranged weapon if needed.

Making a statement with no evidence as to why, doesn't hold any credibility. Why don't you explain why shadow cloak is bad. Ill explain why it is insanely good 1. It's a drop target and escape. If you are being focus fired by 2, 3, or even 10+ people you can simply vanish and force them to aquire another target. You can repeatedly recast it if you have enough mana and use it as an escape tool. 2. You can use it to supplement stealth attacks like veiled strike 3. You can use it to clear DOT's from you or delay a fight while your own DOT's tick 4. You activate powerful passive abilities like +15% stamina regen after stealth, and +armor and +spell resistance after stealth 5. You can dictate the pace and momentum of a fight with this ability

If you meant bolt escape, shadow cloak, and fiery grip then I agree. I don't think they are overpowered, but I do think that they are class defining pvp abilities that anyone would be foolish to leave out of a pvp build.

Thats correct, but that doesnt change the fact that I think shadow cloak is a class defining pvp ability (and cripple). You can make pvp builds without these skills, I just don't think they are as good. If you forego shadow cloak, it means you have to facetank enemies like any other class, and that makes blur/evasion/sparks almost mandatory. Now if there are invisibility potions that you can use in-combat, that changes things because now everyone can get a shadow cloak type ability from their potion. So a little variable like that can ofcourse change what Im saying, and I have heard from sources that there are invis potions. I still think that shadow cloak and cripple are the best nightblade pvp abilities and not taking them is foolish.

If youre going to use a 2 hander as a sorc pvp build, I really think the one thing you absolutely need to do is put bolt escape on that bar. It allows you to charge both in and out of combat, and that added mobility is priceless.

Anyone who makes a pvp build without shadow cloak, is not making an optimal build. Its like making a pvp sorcerror without bolt escape. You cant leave out the best pvp ability, and have an optimal build. You might make a workable build, even a good build, without taking these abilities but why leave out what are the best pvp abilities of your class? Cripple is also up there as one of the best pvp abilities a nightblade can take.

Yep thats why I said that in PVP, having more than 1 or 2 stamina abilities is just not smart. You need your stamina for CC breaks and dodge rolls. There are plenty of melee abilities that use magicka (class abilities) and your basic attacks are free.

Cool build, seeing it is a PVP build I have some suggestions to improve it. I like most of the skills you have chosen, but I would consider having bolt escape on both bars, as I consider that to be one of the sorcerrors best pvp abilities, and you can combo it well with critical charge by charging in and out of combat. You can actually do hit and runs this way and your survival increases dramatically even without heavy armor. To be completely honest though, it is too reliant on stamina, a PVP build should never use stamina heavy abilities because you need that stamina for reactive defenses (CC break, and dodge rolls), and also it looks to me like the strongest sorcerror pvp builds will have at least one summon, and seeing as you did not pick any, sorcerror may not be the best class to choose for you. The only class skills you picked are lightning form, surge, mages fury, bolt escape.