Min/Max Combos (Very Early Theorycrafting)

[irons]

The Resto Staff has one weakness which is that it's attack seems not to work at close range but I guess that's a bug.

 

Otherwise I agree with you

[Theoryexpert]

Because weapon power and spell power are both passive abilities either chosen based on cLvl/passives for SP or what weapon you're using/passives for WP, and we don't have much control over it even at end-game, no weapon is better than another for anyone except if you're going medium armor you want to use more weapon abilities, etc.. there are only a couple truisms, like Resto Staff is better than Destro Staff unless you really want to use Destro Staff abilities (but you shouldn't.)

 

Bow will be better than resto/destro while fighting people in light armor.. but white damage doesn't much make a difference unless you're sneaking, and the bow abilities aren't that strong themselves.

 

Sneak is good for all classes, but only usable with white damage on ranged attacks even really with a nb using Cloak, so it doesn't matter if you're in medium armor--you still need a ranged attack for sneak attacking effectively, so light-armor users with either a staff or bow can do just as much sneak attack damage.

 

Mark Target increases dmg taken, but spell like blur, evasion, and blind are unaffected. If you have mitigation that isn't AR/SP based then you'd have a huge advantage with Mark Target, otherwise the only advantage would be if you were fighting a healer or someone that was less damage-focused than you.

 

If there's a 40% reduction of mRes and AR though from puncture, and 1h+s does nearly 90% of the damage as 2h or dw (the same as ranged weapons), then consider than puncture would lower the MR and AR for the attacks from all members in the group... if you're pvping with melee, your best weapon choice is hands down 1h+s, you also get a 60% snare and a charge with the most utility. Basically, utility is and always will be king in PVP.. It's no exception in this game.

 

Yeah, you could go medium armor with 1h+s.. you'd be able to case more Defensive Postures and such.. but you're probably even still better off going heavy and blocking a lot while the people in light armor tear up all the noobs in medium and even heavy.

 

The thing is, unless they change a LOT, light armor in this game is the best armor type by a huge difference. Kiting and doing just as much damage at the same time is stronger in this game than chasing and doing bursts of damage when you get to the target. The only way to overcome this as a melee is probably as a 1h+s in heavy with high mres and spamming defensive posture, or to be a NB with Mark Target and using Blur/Evasion/Sparks/Teleport Strike/Haste with high offensive stats and playing extremely offensively.. If you think you can get by without sparks then a 2h build would be better for chasing, crit charge would do more damage to light-users as well as being your preferred resource so you can chase more. Something like Blur/Evasion/Crit Charge/Haste/Momentum.. I just hope that 30% mitigation is enough to overcome an epic kite build. Sure, a bow would work, Blur/Evasion/Volley/Scatter/Snipe or something. This way you don't need to chase and such..

 

These strats just aren't as strong though, because honestly... we end up using skills for damage a lot more than white hits, so really the only good builds are high resource ones like sorc/nb with dark exchange or haste+siphoning strikes and then damage abilities that are effective... So to be effective we throw light armor and a resto staff on our NB, something like Haste+Siphoning+Strife+Entropy+Cripple.. but it's not enough utility to kite melee, so you're screwed there.. it's just not possible for anything to be as good as a sorc in light armor. As a NB, nothing's spammable at range except strife but that doesn't end up working out well.. so again, you're relying on white damage while the sorc is blowing shit up and having great AOE at the same time.

 

Great info there nusk, you kind of went all over the place so I will touch on a few points you made.

 

-I don't think medium armor encourages using much more stamina abilities in PVP, as weird as that sounds. It gives you more leeway to use more stamina abilities,  but I think the most important use of stamina in PVP is going to be dodge rolls and CC breaks. If I have more stamina, Ill probably just dodge roll more often rather than use more stamina based abilities, which tend to be weaker than class based magicka abilities.

 

-You are right, bow abilities don't seem that good except for the dodge roll speed passive.

 

-Mark Target will be useful as long as you can keep damage off yourself. This means you need to use CC, Dots, and invisibility to avoid damage. You can't face tank while using mark target unless, like you said you equipped blur, evasion, and blind which would be a waste. Mark target will be excellent in groups, and for hit and run style combat.

 

-Sword and shield looks strong in pvp utility wise, but its probably lacking damage. Hard to tell whats good or bad right now, but it looks good on paper.

 

-I don't think kite builds are going to be very impressive, because everyone can equip a ranged weapon and gap closers are spammable.

 

-I don't think sorcs are overpowered but I need to study them more. By the way, what is the reason you say resto staff is better than destro staff? Just because it has better abilities?

[irons]

By the way, what is the reason you say resto staff is better than destro staff? Just because it has better abilities?

It deals the same base damage as a Destruction Staff but gets dmg boost from passives so it deals more dmg and it also heals.

[Theoryexpert]

I really don't think white damage will mean a whole lot in PVP. The way I see PVP going is this:

 

-People will blow all their magicka as quickly as possible to frontload damage and debuffs. This is why they didnt make any pure damage spammable magicka abilities. Instead, you are likely to do a full magicka rotation of damage/debuffs/utility. You may save a small amount of magicka for defensive abilities like shadow cloak.

 

-They will also use stamina but good players will manage it well enough so that they can break free of CC as needed, and dodge roll as needed

 

-Once your resource pools are blown, only then do you start doing white damage and mixing in abilities as your pools regen. You may have mixed in a white attack or two during your initial assaults, but the majority of white attacks are going to come once your pools are depleted. Many fights will be over before this point.

 

There is no reason NOT to blow all your magicka at the start of the fight, because conserving it accomplishes nothing. You dont want to waste magicka on useless abilities when they are not needed, but there is no reason not to use your magicka efficiently as quickly as possible as soon as a pvp battle begins. Stamina is different, because you need to manage it properly so that you can break free of CC, sprint, and dodge roll as needed.

 

As far as destruction vs resto staff: If you are an elemental damage dealer: the single ability weakness to elements makes the destro staff worth taking over a resto staff, especially if you arent a healer.

[irons]

If you have useless abilities on your hotbar you have made something wrong.The reg in this game is no way as fast as you think it is.Just a small example at lvl 15 with magicka of around 500 and some passives I hit max Magicka Reg by 29.Which means that you get 29 points every 2secs.Defensive Skills cost at that level around 150 (with reduced skill costs)Offensive skills cost 80 - 130.Those who are blowing there magicka too early will than be unable to fight.Oh btw CC break costs around half of your Stamina bar and dodging isn't much cheaper.

[Theoryexpert]

I don't want to break the NDA but I can share a few things from the last beta that don't give anything away.-My 1on1 pvp fights in cyrodil lasted about 15 seconds or less on average.-Sneak attacks are way overpowered, if you are caught by a sneaked player you immediately have to blow half of your stamina to break out, and are probably down at least 20% of your HP and do not have the fight initiative either. If both parties are sneaking, its incredibly boring moving around trying to find each other for 10 minutes. Overall the stealth system in PVP is horrible in my opinion, but maybe mage light will improve upon that. I doubt it though, since you can still just open a fight from range while stealthed and still have the initiative. Basically, sneak is kind of broken and everyone can do it. It ruins the game to some extent.-You are totally right about CC breaks and dodging, the stamina cost for both was so high that it made the stamina pool essentially worthless for abilities because you need it for reactive defenses. Dodge rolling was a waste of resources at that cost-I won all fair 1on1 fights by doing exactly what I said, frontloading all my damage and hardly using any white attacks. Maybe 1 power attack while people were stunned. It never even got to the point where I had to use my white attacks because people were dead-Once my magicka/stamina pools were gone, I was basically dead myself because all I had was useless white attacks. This was only a problem when fighting 1vs many though. I won all fair 1on1sSo to sum it up, my experience was that PVP was extremely fast paced (the faster the better IMO), but this could also be because we were level 15s who were artificially boosted to level 50 and did not have most of our abilities.I should probably clarify what I mean on frontloading magicka. I am not trying to say burn all your magicka in an inefficient way. What I am saying is that you want to use your magicka abilities as effectively as possible, but also as fast as possible to gain momentum of the fight. There is no point in managing magicka as a resource because your reactionary defenses dont depend on it, except in particular cases such as if you are a knightblade with shadow cloak or sorcerror with bolt escape. Then you may want to save some magicka for escapes.

Your information's are a couple of months old just watch the character progression video and you will see that the split it up.

I watched that video, and I do see that there are two different stats there. That being said, I did not find a single item that had power on it, spell power or weapon power. I really don't think its a bad idea to use both spells and weapon skills considering that class skills are stronger than non class skills typically. The best builds tend to have 3-4 class skills and only 1-2 non class skills, and this is partly because you need to use stamina on reactive defenses and so therefore it is foolish to build a bar with mostly stamina abilities, even if you are a stamina based character. Nusklenagic, you seem to know quite a lot. Were you in the open or closed betas?

[simon UK]

lol. I'd expect tactics to play a much greater part in PVP. All very well having awesome damage from stealth archers, but strategically it's far nicer when their arrows set on fire, or they are protected from return fire by circles etc.

[NoRefunds]

i dont see how u can kite a melee in this game, with spammable gap closer that can stun/immobilize and snares all over the place the only way to kite is by using immovable-rapid maneuver all the time.....about sneak i really hope its not op as u say theoryexpert because that can really ruin the game for everyone

i wonder if its possible to use mage light while sneaking so that u can see enemies but they cant see you lol

[Guest Spyro_mkd]

Big question...can I swap ice staff with fire staff ?? considering they are both destruction staff will that count ?? (havent played the game so I just try and theory-craft from reading and looking at videos) 

 

if yes this is my build, please feel free to scrutinize it, I really wanna hear decent opinion about it.

 

the build focuses on boosting your staff attacks to basically deal moderate sustainable dmg while having good amount of CC(mostly slows) and nice escapes while.(all spells are such that can be fired instantly from long range and cost medium amount of mana wich should make me last longer in a fight)

destro staff (fire staff for more dmg)encase (restraning prison) /good CC with more duration so exploitation stays longer in effectSurge(critical) /boosting my staff dmg also synergizes with exploitation, more crits, more healsBolt escape(streak) /quick escape button that also puts slowAnnulement(dampen magicka) / shield that gives great spell ressistanceweakness to elements(susceptibility) / basicly to boost my staff dmg(if it doesnt work for staff dmg then I might consider changing it)ulty: storm atronacht (charged) / good dmg + stun what more you need out of ultypassivestri focus /since everything is focused on me using the staff this is no brainerelemental force / boosting the staff efectsancient knowledge / makeing staff heavy attacks go fasterexploitation / boosts staff crit chance(not sure what to include here will see when I play, maybe sth for more mana)

Destro staff(ice staff for slow) the only change here is entropy where it will give me kind of a lifesteal for my staff attacks, tradeing the dmg from weakness to elements for more sustainability, also the slow effect from the ice staff gives more CC.encase (restraning prison) annulement(dampen magicka) entropy(degeneration) Bolt escape(streak)Surge(critical)ulty: storm atronacht (charged)

P.S. in case I cant use swap on 2 destro staffs then propably I'll pick resto staff instead of the fire staff and make some minor changes.

[Musclemagic]

Spryro, you can swap any weapon with any weapon--even duplicate weapons. You just can't use ONE weapon for both bars.

[Guest Rj]

Tell me what you think...

Wood elf templar(healing) bow