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Mayhem is upon us!

Some of you may be entering Cyrodiil for the first time. For others, it’s just another day with more mass killing of opponents. The intent of this guide is to provide a high level overview of what you should consider to ensure that you achieve your goals of making a lot of AP, getting a lot of reward boxes, and participating in as much mayhem as possible!

While you can enter Cyrodiil, collect quests, and make your way around surfing the zerg (following where the most players go), and you’ll probably make some good alliance points (AP), there are quite a few small things that you can do to ensure that you bring the most value to the faction and contribute well to fights – rather than being a hindrance to success.

During Mayhem, there are a lot of PvE players coming into Cyrodiil, and most of them haven’t ready this guide. This means that they’re either very squishy and easy to kill, or they’re set up as tanks who will bring little to no value to fights. Most bombers will build for crit, and will be using builds that cause chain reactions of death such as Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, and the Occult Overload CP. If they get one single kill on someone squishy, almost everyone else around that person will also die. It’s very simple to say “don’t be squishy”, but doing so without being a tank can be challenging.

Build Recommendations:

  • If you are experienced in PvP, this probably doesn’t apply to you – though I hope that it will help with any considerations or advice that you give others (notably new players).
  • Be aware that most PvE builds don’t work well in PvP.
  • You should have approximately 35k health. Put all of your 64 character points into health, and then balance your gear enchants to achieve your other goals. If you can’t quite make 35k (especially on a NB), do your best to keep your health as high as possible. In most builds, 64 points in health and tri-chants on your major pieces (head/chest/pants) should get you to about 33.5k, and you can get another 1.4k from red CP (see below).
  • All of your gear should have the Impenetrable trait to reduce critical damage. This is what will kill you most often (along with siege).
  • In the red CP tree, take Celerity for movement speed, Slippery to help automatically break you free from hard crowd control (CC), and Pain’s Refuge to reduce incoming damage when you have negative effects on you (there will be many). This leaves one red CP of your choice, and I usually recommend Boundless Vitality for more health (if you’re under 35k), Bastion if you’re running shields in a group (Barrier, or a set such as Imperium or Combat Physician), or Spirit Mastery to resurrect your allies faster (especially if you’re playing a Templar).
  • In the blue CP tree, take Ironclad, Unassailable, and Enduring Resolve to reduce incoming damage of direct, area, and over time. This leaves one blue CP of your choice, and I usually recommend Occult Overload so that when you get a kill (even with siege), it can chain reaction kill others around your target.
  • In the green CP tree, take Gifted Rider and Steed’s Blessing to increase your speed getting from keep to keep when you don’t have transit. This leaves two green CP of your choice, and I usually recommend Rationer and Liquid Efficiency to save gold on consumables, though during this even you do get additional resources from nodes, so faster harvesting and extra chance for more materials are viable.
  • When picking the sets you want for your build, choose one set that is more defensive, and one that accomplishes your goal (more healing, more damage, or a proc). If one of those sets is crafted, make that the medium armour one. If one of those sets is light or heavy, use neck, rings, and one weapon – or neck, rings, and two body pieces so you can still maintain 5 medium. If one of those sets can be run on only one bar (such as Clever Alchemist or many other proc sets), then you can use a back bar arena weapon.
  • Monster sets can bring enormous value, though if you will be using a Mythic item such as Snow Treaders or the speed ring (the two most common), then you’ll have to either break one of your 5-sets or your monster 2-set. Many solid builds include a monster 2-set, a Mythic 1-set, two arena weapons (master’s and maelstrom), a 5-set, and two extra pieces (Trainee is most common for the 2 extras). There is no absolutely wrong build, but there are many builds that are wrong for you to achieve your goals. One of my favourite solo builds is back bar Clever Alchemist, front bar Rallying Cry, Balorgh or Sellistrix monster set (depending on how you want to play), one Mythic, and one Trainee (for the 1-set health bonus).
  • If your goal is to play defensively (defending keeps from attack), the Elf Bane set is an absolute requirement. It adds 5 seconds to the duration of fire attacks – including siege! If you hit opponents with poured oils, a cold fire ballista or treb, or a regular fire treb, the size of the ticks going for 5 seconds longer will give you a much higher chance of killing your targets. The Sellistrix monster set is also a great choice, as it will provide an area stun every 6 seconds! Combine both of those with Vicious Death, and while you’ll be breaking the rule of 5 medium armour, as long as you stay safe and keep firing your fire siege, you will get kills, you will help your faction enormously, and you will make a lot of AP. This is the build I often use when playing solo and defending (as of 2023/Q2).
  • If you’re intending to play in groups, look at the composition at https://darkelves.com/builds and try to get as close as possible to one (or more). These are min/max composition builds, and will help your groups succeed if more players bring such group builds.
  • Don’t purge. Take the skill off your bar. If you’re a Templar, don’t run Ritual. If you’re a Warden, don’t run netch. If you’re a healer, don’t run the Curse Eater or Stendarr sets (both only work in your group), and don’t run the blue CP that removes negative effects on low health targets. If you don’t follow this advice, you will be responsible for killing (a lot of) players on your own faction due to the Plaguebreak set as it causes area damage when purged.
  • Use 5 medium armour. Most players who don’t die to area damage bomb chain reactions or Plaguebreak (per above) will die when they run out of stamina. Medium armour gives you more stamina sustain, more output, and lets you slot Shuffle or Elude. Both morphs give you Major Evasion which reduces area (and siege) damage by 20% (this is VERY important). Shuffle removes snares and lasts for 20 seconds, while Elude (the other morph) lasts 35 seconds and gives you Major Expedition when you take area damage. If you’re going to use Snow Treaders or have Race against Time slotted, pick Elude as it lasts longer.

Play / Style Recommendations:

  • Don’t block for more than 2 seconds. You’ll be tempted to block all damage, but that will just drain your stamina and you will likely die a few seconds later. Rather than blocking, learn to roll dodge instead taking you outside of damage areas and causing attacking players to miss. If you’re near-full on stamina, which you should be most of the time in 5 medium, you should be able to roll a LOT (wait for the rolling counter cool-down to be over so they don’t cost more if you can). You will see some players permanently blocking – those are specific niche builds meant to just.. stand there and block. They don’t do much other than ocasionally burn siege, and they’re not worth your time. You can ignore those players and they won’t be able to do anything other than.. stand there and hold block. In PvE, there are taunt skills that work. In PvP, these players rely on your team mates being uneducated (or stupid), so they waste a minute or two killing the one tank target rather than killing 50+ other targets in the same time. Don’t waste time killing tanks (unless you’re firing Elf Bane enhanced fire siege on them – which will often kill them as they can’t block that damage).
  • When you’re on siege, fire then immediately get off and cast at least one skill (renew a HoT, buff, cast an area skill, etc.) before you get back on and fire again.
  • Most players can easily run three siege in a perfect triangle if they’re not casting in between, or two if they are (per above). If there aren’t 20 offensive siege at a keep you’re attacking, drop and use more siege!
  • Note that fire siege does less damage to doors and walls. You should always use basic (stone) siege when you want to open a keep.
  • If you’re a healer, please read through https://darkelves.com/casting-styles/ and watch the video for your class. That knowledge will help a lot. Healers should always be casting while in combat, and the Maelstrom resto staff will ensure that your magicka sustain is adequate (while in combat).

–More to come, this is a work in progress and will probably be better organized once done!