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I wanted to get more event tickets, so I decided to join the Midyear Mayhem event. I have now went to Cyrodiil and the Imperial City with two characters, with no prior PvP experience (save two duels). The problem is, it's not very fun. Especially Imperial City is just frustrating, even though I joined a no-CP campaign for easier experience.

The problem is that other players seem to move like lightning bolts and kill me in seconds. Even my tankish dragonknight (lvl 50 with 45 CP) with more than 25000 "native" health, health enchantments and heavy armor was toast the second she met an enemy player. And this even when buffed with a crown meal. All my Tel Var stones were gone in the process of trying to complete the daily quest, in less than half an hour.

On the contrary, it seemed like my attacks barely dented the other guys even though I had Sharpened weapons. That despite the fact that most of them seemed to be nightblades, so not tanks nor heavily armored. I also couldn't even see them most of the time before they attacked from a direction I just had come from, and half of my health was gone. Also, no attack of mine with a status effect seemed to do anything at all, but the enemy players seemed to be able to stunlock me without me being able to break free. It all seemed, frankly, almost impossible, like those guys played by some wholly other rules than me.

In a word, definitely not fun.

So, I thought if someone could tell me what's up and what should I do so that I have even a shadow of a chance? I have read a tutorial, but it wasn't very helpful as its advice didn't seem to help any. Especially I'd like to know how to spot those sneaking (?) enemies and how to avoid being killed in seconds. I'd like to enjoy PvP sometimes, but this experience definitely dampened my zeal for it.

I can't really help with the PvP, because I'm not much good at it, but just in case you weren't aware of it, you can deposit your Tel Var in the bank so you don't lose it.

What you do is press R like you want to deposit your gold, but then in the popup dialog box you just click on the right side of the amount field to drop down a list of your bankable currencies-- gold, Alliance Points, Tel Var, and Crafting Writ Vouchers. Click on whichever one you want to deposit (or withdraw)-- the blue one is Tel Var-- and you can deposit all of your Tel Var stones so you don't lose them. You'll get more Tel Var stones when you kill enemies in the Imperial City, and those stones will be at risk if you get killed, so be sure to always visit the banker after arriving back at your home base to deposit any Tel Var stones you've collected before heading back up to the districts or back into the sewer passages. Or, if you get killed and are revived up on a safe platform of a district that your alliance controls, go down to your base to visit the banker and deposit any Tel Var you've collected before jumping back down into the fray.

As far as PvP, apparently Critical Damage is a major part of what makes PvP so different damage-wise from PvE (but I'm no expert on this, so I might be wrong about that), therefore Impenetrable is said to be the most useful armor trait to have on PvP gear. You can buy PvP gear for Alliance Points from merchants at your home base in Cyrodiil, or for Tel Var from merchants at your home base in the Imperial City sewers, and PvP gear also drops in both zones or is awarded for doing quests. If you don't have enough AP or TV to buy any PvP gear, you should also be able to find some for gold at guild traders. But if you just browse through the available gear sets in your Collections sticker book to see what kinds of bonuses they have, you might be able to find a craftable set or dropped PvE set that has similar bonuses, then just craft or transmute gear from that set so it has the Impenetrable trait.

Your CP distribution is supposed to be another important part of it, but I haven't ever looked at any discussions or recommendations about character builds; I just do my own thing, which might be why I'm usually so squishy in PvP.

Thanks for tips! Yeah, it was stupid of me not to remember you can bank Tel Vars.

I actually tried Imperial City again last night, when I had got over the frustrated rage that mastered me after that first try, and which prompted this thread. Now I went about it much smarter, and the results were much better. I geared my DK in all impenetrable armor and made sure she was buffed with food at all times. Also, I took a good look at my slotted skills and changed them according to what I thought suitable for PvP. A few key principles emerged:

1. Stealth. Those gankers that killed me were either invisible or sneaking, and so managed to ambush me. To counter it, I started to sneak all the time myself and looking carefully before every move. Also, I changed to third-person view for better all-around visibility. Next logical step is that I'll get some detection pots (only learned about them after googling).
2. Slotted skills. Another thing I realized was that the gankers were using strong stun attacks on me. So I slotted Petrify myself on the sword-and-board bar. Equally logically, one should try to kill/cripple the enemy when he is stunned and helpless. So kept Low Slash and Puncture slotted to be used immediately on the stunned foe.
3. Movement. When attacked, one must keep moving. It's wholly different from most PvE encounters where you can stand still and rotate your attacks at leisure.

When I kept these maxims in mind, the result was dramatic. I survived much better and longer, and was even able to kill two enemy players. Granted, both of those kills were finalized by a friendly player coming to assist, but in both cases I had whittled most of the enemies' HP away already and would most likely have won anyway. Also, a few times I compelled enemy players to flee because I foiled their suprise murder attempts and hit back too hard. In one case I even sneak attacked and stunned a CP 810 player who only managed to get away because he/she had invisibility and I no method of detection. So it looks like that correct method counts more than gear (I had no golden gear and my armor was just a mix of Ashen Grip and Death's Wind craftable sets).

Of course, I still died a lot but mostly due to my own errors and impatience. The main thing was that I was able to finish the daily quest in reasonable time and not feel all ragey afterwards. Also, since I banked all my remaining Tel Vars beforehand, I finished with a small net profit of them.

Feels good to be able to fight back and even occasionally win. Not a sacrificial lamb anymore.

I'm glad it's going better for you!

And yeah, being able to survive longer and sometimes even win goes a long way to helping you get over the trauma of PvP.

As for not standing still, I can go either way. If I'm still trying to complete a quest, I might ignore my attacker(s) and just run to the next quest target, especially if I'm supposed to kill a certain number of NPCs or Daedra, to try to make a bit more progress before I'm killed. But if I've just completed a quest and am trying to get back to base anyway, I'll just stand there and let them kill me!