Best PvP Ultimates in ESO
Are you wondering what are the BEST universal Ultimates for the Elder Scrolls Online? In this guide I’ll give you two and explain how to use them for whatever build and playstyle you’re on so you can dominate ESO PvP!
Q: What is the best universal defensive ultimate?
A: Restoration Staff Life Giver.
Why?
This ability is an absolute must for magicka builds and even some stamina builds. Yes even some stamina builds back bar a restoration staff because of this ability.
The ability allows you to survive insane damage because of the sheer amount of healing and buffs it provides in a short duration.
When casting Life Giver, it’ll burst heal you for five seconds and cast three abilities at once, Regeneration, Blessing of Protection and Steadfast Ward.
You can change the morphs in the skill lines for the specific ones you’d like, basically group or solo morphs
You can change the morphs in the skill lines for the specific ones you’d like, basically group or solo morphs
This is you’re oh crap panic button, someone beating on me, I’m about to lose a duel, I’m nervous I don’t know what to do, someone is pressuring me and so on
HIT RESTO ult or as I like to call it resty
It’ll smart target one person and has such a low cost it’ll be up again very quickly
So what I do and how I use this is in combination with a tri potion that gives a flood of resource and a 45 second cool down
In generally every 30-45 second I’ll either have a resto ult or a potion, so I’ll ult, survive for awhile, potion, survive for awhile resto ult and so on.
Another trick with the ability is using the resto ult for resource sustain and making sure you know the passives in the resto skill line and it’s all about a fully charged heavy attack.
If you’re out of gas OOM but you have a resto, hit it.
Essence drain passive will give you MAJOR mending for 3 seconds after a fully charged resto, plus you can stack major mending with minor on a templar and hit a massive breath of life or Honor the dead
You can easily sit tight and fully charge a resto, even when people are attacking you because the healing is just so strong with resto ult.
Also the Cycle of life passive your fully charged heavy attacks restore 30% more magicka
In general when I’m completely oom with no potion ready, I’ll pop this, a fully charged heavy attack takes roughly two and half seconds and resto ult last 5 seconds
I’ll rip off two fully charged attacks on a target even if I’m getting beat on, when the effect ends I have a massive flood of resources due to the passives and I’m ready for action.
Then if I get low or under pressure again, I’m just a few seconds away from a tri potion. (Tri-Stat Potion: Health, Stam and Mag in one potion)
Every class has either a skill or a skill line that gives ultimate or reduces the cost.
Take magplar (Magicka Templar) for instance, Prism passive in dawns wrath gives you 3 ultimate in combat for casting a dawn’s wrath skill line every 6 seconds
You’ll notice my magplar build always has at least one dawn’s wrath ability on it because of this reason. I want to incorporate a dawn’s wrath to speed up my ultimate generation leading to a quicker restoration ultimate.
TIP: Check your class and passives, it’s either reduced cost, or an in combat ult generation tool or both!
And even if you’re a stamina build, you still can run a restoration staff especially on a tank, it’s going to keep you up and possible a group member running insane healing for five seconds.
I used to run sword and shield ultimate for years and it’s great, but resto ultimate is way better when you factor in the passives, fully charge resource component and that it’s good in group, solo, dueling it’s just the absolute best.
OFFENSIVE Ultimate
What about offensive ultimates, what’s a killing machine?
Q:Well what would be the criteria for a amazing offensive ultimate?
A: Low cost, Have some passives for slotting it, hit very hard up front and even a damage over time effect after, and if possible a stun/cc so someone couldn’t react or counter.
Extended Answer:
Well then it has to be Dawnbreaker of Smiting from the Fighters guild and it’s my all time favorite and most useful. 
Now, even if you’re a magicka build hear me out on this one as I’ve used DB on magicka builds and while it does physical damage it scales based on your highest stats and can melt even on mag tooons
If we read the ability, it does has a small animation of 0.4 seconds, ultimate cost of 125, conal meaning in front of you in a cone shape, slams down physical damage, stun and damage over time
Q: What makes DB so strong is the stun?
A: This alone makes it an offensive AND defensive ultimate, especially for classes that lack a lot of stuns like the Necromancer, Warden and Templars who are not using javelin or toppling charge
I’m going to again point to the passives which is another reason it’s so strong, Slayer increasing your weapon damage by 3% for each fighters guild ability slotted.
So if you throw this and Camouflaged hunter on your bar as a stamina build that’s 6% increased weapon damage on your main attack bar!
And another insane passive banish the wicked, you generate 3 ultimate whenever you kill an enemy, yes player too. So having this on your front bar will boost your ultimate generation, increase your weapon damage just passively, it’s great!
Q: How do we use it?
A: This might sound obvious but I want you to think about it, you’re trying to line up as much damage in a short burst that you can.
PvE is about damage over time, stacking as much dots so that you ramp up your damage
PvP is about hitting someone so hard with some many things in one instance they instantly die
Directions: Use a fully charge a heavy attack, land the attack right on a target and instantly cast Dawnbreaker, then an execute shortly after. If it lands properly YOU WILL damage someone with the damage from a heavy attack, your enchants or poisons and your Dawnbreaker (not to mention any proc sets you’re running).
That’s three or more damage sources within less than a second.
Next Step: Hit them with an execute shortly after like executioner from two handed or whirling blades from dual wield and instead of some complex rotation and skill series of clicks, you hold a heavy, ult and one ability. Simple is a great way to get good and build confidence.
Again we point to passives. Noticing a trend right?
Two handed has Follow Up passive: “when you complete a fully charged heavy your next direct damage attack within 7 seconds deals an additional 10% damage”
Yes Dawnbreaker of smiting will hit 10% harder….this combo is VERY easy to pull off and requires just a little bit of practice.
Not to mention if you kill an enemy from this combo with a two handed battle rush passive will kick in increasing your stamina recovery by 30% for 10 seconds after killing a target
As a newer player keep it simple not more complex, heavy, DB execute RIPeroni Pepperoni!!
Bar Setup:
On nearly all my PvP builds I have an offensive and defensive ultimate and you’re definitely not limited to the ones I’ve mentioned in this guide and video
General rule is having one bar for offensive damage with a main spammable, burst and your offensive ultimate of choice, Fighter’s Guild: DB or Mages Guild: Shooting star another good choice
Back bar, defensive, buffs, healing and ultimate
Restoration staff is my go to but consider using sword and shield ultimate for stamina users
On your back bar, you’ll prioritize buffs from longest to shortest and then launch into an attack
Start using your defensive ultimate: When charging a breached keep or launching into an attack. You don’t have to wait to get focused down.
Use your offensive ultimate for defensive purposes: When you’re healing is getting focused pop a Dawn Breaker flattening that curve and that enemy, also giving your healer a break.
Newbie tip: double bar a class based defensive ultimate and your heal.
If you’re a templar and flustered easily, double bar remembrance or something that doesn’t require a weapon, double bar breath of life that way no matter what you have an o crap heal and a o crap ultimate on both bars so when you’re flustered and panicked. I know my 5 key no matter what bar will keep me up for a bit longer.
I hope you got something out of this short guide and video. It can be a lot of information for just two abilities. This highlights how complex and nuanced ESO is and why I absolutely love creating content for it to this day
The more you learn the more you realize; Once you stop learning the game is over.
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