Barrier needs a nerf

ToRelax

Charadras wrote: »

So tell me one thing. I am in a pvp guild and when we have evening raid (just 2 hours) we are about 20/24 People all on ts, all with gear and build for warband style and all of us know His role. Eso give me the opportunity to make a 24 mens raid with my guildmate (not everyone at vr 14 because we have new recruit). So are we a zerg? If yes what we have to do? Tell People to not log because we have to play in max 12 ppls? Split in 2 party and die because every evening on haderus there are always a blue and a Yellow 30+ zerg?

First of all - I would call that a zergball, exactly because it's differrent than the random zerg that does not stack up.

I think it would be more fun for most people you see in Cyrodiil, if zergballing was not a viable tactic.
I do not like if you do it, but if you want to wipe other zergballs, especially bigger ones, it makes sense.
So where would be the problem if stacking up would be very dangerous, suicide in most situations during a fight?
If the counter to zergballing was AoE, not zergballing yourself.

Xsorus

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

What people do not seem to understand is that if barrier would be nerfed as OP suggested (6ppl) large- group PVP or guild vs guild - i'm talking live 24 vs 24- fights would be dramatically reduced to the ridiculous- I burst you faster - kind of fight as there would be no way to set up defensive strategies when we see the amount of damage we already get with barrier rotation RIGHT NOW. With 20-ppl-barrier, it's more of a statu-quo and the fight can become interesting.

I'm not talking about zerg vs raid, I'm talking about guild vs guild.

No you are talking Zerg vs zerg, don't kid yourself with that guild vs guild crap.
i blame guild wars 2 for letting certain guilds think that running a 24 man was the way to go

I call zerg = unorganized groups of random players massed at one place and raids = guild groups.

You can call it how you want. But these 2 groups are completely different. One will be just a big huge load of players acting randomly and following each other. The other one will have objectives and group coordination on TS and skills synergies and is quite fun to play. If I want to play it and zenimax gave me a 24-raid group, why wouldn't I ?

You can call it whatever the hell you want, it's still a zerg and it's been a zerg in every single game since the term was adopted (in daoc) in fact.. If you were to run two 8 mans in Daoc, even though they were organized you were Zerging. This crap you Zergers tried to come up with to rebrand your Zerging is laughable

Charadras

RainfeatherUK wrote: »

Charadras wrote: »

So tell me one thing. I am in a pvp guild and when we have evening raid (just 2 hours) we are about 20/24 People all on ts, all with gear and build for warband style and all of us know His role. Eso give me the opportunity to make a 24 mens raid with my guildmate (not everyone at vr 14 because we have new recruit). So are we a zerg? If yes what we have to do? Tell People to not log because we have to play in max 12 ppls? Split in 2 party and die because every evening on haderus there are always a blue and a Yellow 30+ zerg?

Theres a difference between co-ordinated events and running around in a mega blob, because you're crap at PvP lol.

I don't read this here. I see People that call every 20+ Group zerg prescind if is a full guild Group or a pug ones.

Xsorus

Charadras wrote: »

So tell me one thing. I am in a pvp guild and when we have evening raid (just 2 hours) we are about 20/24 People all on ts, all with gear and build for warband style and all of us know His role. Eso give me the opportunity to make a 24 mens raid with my guildmate (not everyone at vr 14 because we have new recruit). So are we a zerg? If yes what we have to do? Tell People to not log because we have to play in max 12 ppls? Split in 2 party and die because every evening on haderus there are always a blue and a Yellow 30+ zerg?

Yes you are a zerg, no you don't have to split up.. Just don't pretend you aren't zerging.. Because you are...
If you dislike being called a zerger... Stop bloody zerging

Charadras

Xsorus wrote: »

Charadras wrote: »

So tell me one thing. I am in a pvp guild and when we have evening raid (just 2 hours) we are about 20/24 People all on ts, all with gear and build for warband style and all of us know His role. Eso give me the opportunity to make a 24 mens raid with my guildmate (not everyone at vr 14 because we have new recruit). So are we a zerg? If yes what we have to do? Tell People to not log because we have to play in max 12 ppls? Split in 2 party and die because every evening on haderus there are always a blue and a Yellow 30+ zerg?

Yes you are a zerg, no you don't have to split up.. Just don't pretend you aren't zerging.. Because you are...
If you dislike being called a zerger... Stop bloody zerging

So we are zerg. Good, i Like zerging with my guildmate and i have always zerg with them.

Kas

There will always be balling in ESO, i guess. Synergies are incredibly strong and most of them are designed to be activated by a friendly player that has to be as close as possible.

If I would fight 4v10++, I'm pretty sure that those 4 will have to ball up again and again to create some close.range brust damage through synergies. Maybe they will scatter again, but they'll always have to ball up again timely to be effective.

imho buffsing siege damage was a nice start to avoid the balling. however, if 10+ players meat 10+ for whatever reaons, it's the party with higher numbers that gets a significant advantage from siege because they can afford to put up backline siege more readily.

imho that didn't work. on top of it, barrier stacking somewhat counters it, but I think having no counter to siege would not fix the problem at all. after all, "zergballs" or wahtever you want to call them, are the only way a faction with less server population can stand their group against superior numbers.

themdogesbite

Kas wrote: »

There will always be balling in ESO, i guess. Synergies are incredibly strong and most of them are designed to be activated by a friendly player that has to be as close as possible.

If I would fight 4v10++, I'm pretty sure that those 4 will have to ball up again and again to create some close.range brust damage through synergies. Maybe they will scatter again, but they'll always have to ball up again timely to be effective.

imho buffsing siege damage was a nice start to avoid the balling. however, if 10+ players meat 10+ for whatever reaons, it's the party with higher numbers that gets a significant advantage from siege because they can afford to put up backline siege more readily.

imho that didn't work. on top of it, barrier stacking somewhat counters it, but I think having no counter to siege would not fix the problem at all. after all, "zergballs" or wahtever you want to call them, are the only way a faction with less server population can stand their group against superior numbers.

And it will still do, it will just be harder to shield your group if you are a bigger one.

ToRelax

Kas wrote: »

There will always be balling in ESO, i guess. Synergies are incredibly strong and most of them are designed to be activated by a friendly player that has to be as close as possible.

If I would fight 4v10++, I'm pretty sure that those 4 will have to ball up again and again to create some close.range brust damage through synergies. Maybe they will scatter again, but they'll always have to ball up again timely to be effective.

imho buffsing siege damage was a nice start to avoid the balling. however, if 10+ players meat 10+ for whatever reaons, it's the party with higher numbers that gets a significant advantage from siege because they can afford to put up backline siege more readily.

imho that didn't work. on top of it, barrier stacking somewhat counters it, but I think having no counter to siege would not fix the problem at all. after all, "zergballs" or wahtever you want to call them, are the only way a faction with less server population can stand their group against superior numbers.

I disagree. Pre 1.6, since Hopesfire 2.0, we used to wipe pretty large groups when we could get about 8 people together, but couldn't stand against zergballs mostly. A faction with less server population can still win with tactics, strategy and most importantly, good players. The skill cap in a zergball is incredible low, it's boring and you don't get better doing that.

Kas

ToRelax wrote: »

Kas wrote: »

There will always be balling in ESO, i guess. Synergies are incredibly strong and most of them are designed to be activated by a friendly player that has to be as close as possible.

If I would fight 4v10++, I'm pretty sure that those 4 will have to ball up again and again to create some close.range brust damage through synergies. Maybe they will scatter again, but they'll always have to ball up again timely to be effective.

imho buffsing siege damage was a nice start to avoid the balling. however, if 10+ players meat 10+ for whatever reaons, it's the party with higher numbers that gets a significant advantage from siege because they can afford to put up backline siege more readily.

imho that didn't work. on top of it, barrier stacking somewhat counters it, but I think having no counter to siege would not fix the problem at all. after all, "zergballs" or wahtever you want to call them, are the only way a faction with less server population can stand their group against superior numbers.

I disagree. Pre 1.6, since Hopesfire 2.0, we used to wipe pretty large groups when we could get about 8 people together, but couldn't stand against zergballs mostly. A faction with less server population can still win with tactics, strategy and most importantly, good players. The skill cap in a zergball is incredible low, it's boring and you don't get better doing that.

we used to play in groups of 4, 8 and up to sizes you'd call a zergball on Azura's EU a few weeks ago, where there was constantly 1 yellow bar vs two locks - albeit, onyl fighting blues, god knows where Azura's reds hide all the time (now, there's much more yellow). THE most frustrating thing was standing your ground against many many enemies until they had put up enough sieges and then just die. More often than not, even inside OUR keeps or outposts sieges went up en masse. Fighting 4v20 induvidually and spread out gets you nowhere if a target just BoL's away. There will always be sieges in every direction of the center. if you ignore them, you die. if you spread out, you're outta healrange and cannot take down a blocking target quickly enough - you die. The only thing you can do is keep on moving but in the same direction - rushing siege after siege while never standing still.

Now as soon as we're talking about 50+ enemies, 4, or even 8, players won't do much anymore. Neither will two groups of 8 because the enemy zerg (as in the huge amount of solo randoms rushing from A to B ) will always stay together - killign solo's or groups of 4 once every 30min is no fun but mostly all you find if you avoid the main action. Sure, you can turn some keeps or outposts by splitting up but who want's to do that? So one thing you can do, is play the same way you did as 4 or 8 but on a larger scale. Voilà, a zergball.

Back on topic:
I'd welcome a nerf to barrier. I think our groups relies much more on high defense than others. There are 0 to 2 barries usually, pretty few h-springs. If others still run light armor or lots of stamina users with huge 25k++ barriers, I guess it would be very advantageous to us if barrier got nerfed.

However, I'm still afraid getting rid of barrier would make most of us instantly give up against enemy siege. Making mitigation against siege possible again but nerfing barrier - that'd be the dream.

Sotha_Sil

Xsorus wrote: »

Yes you are a zerg, no you don't have to split up.. Just don't pretend you aren't zerging.. Because you are...
If you dislike being called a zerger... Stop bloody zerging

So much hate. You like small groups, we like to play in large group, a zerg if you prefer, so what?? no need to flood the forums saying "you are a zerg, you are a zerg" at every post, we got your point. Jesus... you didn't even talk about barrier the topic of this thread. So please start making a constructive comment and tell us what you think about barrier instead of trolling.

Lorkhan

this only affect zerg vs zerg fights
if you are a small group, zerg will destroy you anyway

edit: as it should. beacuse of numbers. i know you alone want to destroy 24 enemies at once, but i dont think it is fair at all

Soulac

Lorkhan wrote: »

this only affect zerg vs zerg fights
if you are a small group, zerg will destroy you anyway

edit: as it should. beacuse of numbers. i know you alone want to destroy 24 enemies at once, but i dont think it is fair at all

300, watch it.

Lava_Croft

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

Garion

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

It's not the "massive PvP" I am predominantly concerned with, it's the blobbing of raids that causes issue and the current state of barrier increases the viability of such behaviour. But as you have taken the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality I don't expect to be able to change your mind!

In any event, ZOS themselves - who marketed this game as offering large scale PvP - have indicated that they would like people to spread out; I am simply offering them an idea to make the zerg blobbing style of play more difficult to achieve, thus discouraging it.

Ezareth

Charadras wrote: »

So tell me one thing. I am in a pvp guild and when we have evening raid (just 2 hours) we are about 20/24 People all on ts, all with gear and build for warband style and all of us know His role. Eso give me the opportunity to make a 24 mens raid with my guildmate (not everyone at vr 14 because we have new recruit). So are we a zerg? If yes what we have to do? Tell People to not log because we have to play in max 12 ppls? Split in 2 party and die because every evening on haderus there are always a blue and a Yellow 30+ zerg?

Nothing wrong with Zerging on it's face for some people, but just don't think it is something other than what it is.

Lorkhan

Soulac wrote: »

Lorkhan wrote: »

this only affect zerg vs zerg fights
if you are a small group, zerg will destroy you anyway

edit: as it should. beacuse of numbers. i know you alone want to destroy 24 enemies at once, but i dont think it is fair at all

300, watch it.

yes, they stack too.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

All of this back and forward has nothing to do with the post no a 24 men group is not a Zerg it's when that group links up by plan or random chance with other friendly forces that it turns in to a Zerg

This is just how the game is played with raider only attacking the next keep/outpost in front of them and sometimes skipping it. We have a war being fought at predictable place causing large numbers to accumulate in one place. Mainly cause fighting in like two places is all that ever happens.

Let's say the Pact loss Chalman to the Covenant and is battling the Dominion at Blue Road Keep how often is Fort Ash and Castle Roeback hit in that time deep behind enemy lines almost never so long as their are only two battles to be fought you will see a defense team on one side and a Zerg on the other. No raider are willing to take that long ride so everyone just fights the front lines zerging is going to happen everyday with that kind of strategy

Forestd16b14_ESO

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Instead of lowering the target cap, I'd rather see the cost greatly increased. AvA skills are special because of their target caps. If you lower the caps, then how about Retreating Maneuver? War Horn?

And calling a group of 24 players a zerg is silly.

I agree with the war horn. Like it doesn't even do that much to begin with so why does it cost what 250 ?

Garion

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

All of this back and forward has nothing to do with the post no a 24 men group is not a Zerg it's when that group links up by plan or random chance with other friendly forces that it turns in to a Zerg

This is just how the game is played with raider only attacking the next keep/outpost in front of them and sometimes skipping it. We have a war being fought at predictable place causing large numbers to accumulate in one place. Mainly cause fighting in like two places is all that ever happens.

Let's say the Pact loss Chalman to the Covenant and is battling the Dominion at Blue Road Keep how often is Fort Ash and Castle Roeback hit in that time deep behind enemy lines almost never so long as their are only two battles to be fought you will see a defense team on one side and a Zerg on the other. No raider are willing to take that long ride so everyone just fights the front lines zerging is going to happen everyday with that kind of strategy

I agree entirely which is why I am also strongly behind the reintroduction of forward camps. Yes it provides somewhere for these bomb squads to respawn but it also encourages these bomb squads to spread out across the map, rather than having two or three same faction raids in one spot. There are other reasons too but I don't want to take the thread off topic.

Xsorus

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

No one is complaining about large groups, What we have a problem with is people like @Sotha_Sil pretending he's not zerging and then telling everyone here 24 people aren't in fact zergs (Like you yourself just did)

If you're going to zerg, bloody own up to it, don't try and rebrand it.

As for the OP, Barrier probably is overtuned for large groups. This could be fixed by simply removing Shield Stacking.

ToRelax

Xsorus wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

No one is complaining about large groups, What we have a problem with is people like @Sotha_Sil pretending he's not zerging and then telling everyone here 24 people aren't in fact zergs (Like you yourself just did)

If you're going to zerg, bloody own up to it, don't try and rebrand it.

As for the OP, Barrier probably is overtuned for large groups. This could be fixed by simply removing Shield Stacking.

I don't see how removing shield stacking would solve this. Barrier doesn't stack with itself anymore, so what's the point?
Wouldn't have a problem with it if shield stacking was removed though. I don't care anyway.

Ezareth

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

All of this back and forward has nothing to do with the post no a 24 men group is not a Zerg it's when that group links up by plan or random chance with other friendly forces that it turns in to a Zerg

If it looks like a Zerg, swims like a Zerg, and quacks like a Zerg....then it is probably a Zerg.

Xsorus

ToRelax wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

No one is complaining about large groups, What we have a problem with is people like @Sotha_Sil pretending he's not zerging and then telling everyone here 24 people aren't in fact zergs (Like you yourself just did)

If you're going to zerg, bloody own up to it, don't try and rebrand it.

As for the OP, Barrier probably is overtuned for large groups. This could be fixed by simply removing Shield Stacking.

I don't see how removing shield stacking would solve this. Barrier doesn't stack with itself anymore, so what's the point?
Wouldn't have a problem with it if shield stacking was removed though. I don't care anyway.

Ahh, then a cap on amount of players would probably be only thing to stop it then.

Sotha_Sil

Xsorus wrote: »

Ahh, then a cap on amount of players would probably be only thing to stop it then.

Could you please give us more details : what do you think of the suggestion made earlier on this thread : 6 ppl or 12 ppl cap ? What would be the most relevant against zerg in your opinion ?

Sublime

To start off I'll give you my opinion on the caps: All secondary effects should be hard-capped at 6 (includes Maneuver, Purge, War Horn, Barrier etc.), simply for the sake of logic.

About whether the "nerf" to barrier would help or not, I let math speak for me:

My current AOE burst is 19k (tooltip) * (1+0.55*0.36) = 22,762k per target

against 30 players which is easily possible against bombsquads that is a total of:

22,762k * 6 + 22,762k* 0.5 * 24 = 409,716k unmitigated and unblocked magic damage

Even though I have ~17k spell penetration i only rarely reach those values because of block or high spell resistance.

A hybrid character has a barrier tooltip of about 17k (low end) -> 17k * 24 = 408,000k

Conclusion: A full unblocked combo of several abilities (including an ultimate) of a fully glass-cannon specced Player does not suffice to negate the effect of one barrier cast of a hybrid character. Apart from that my clouding Swarm costs 118 ultimate for my sorc whereas the Barrier costs 250 minus the 4 * 24 = 96 -> 154, it's a total difference of 36 ultimate and the caste doesn't even have to try.

Long story short meaning, Replenishing Barrier is unmatched in terms of ultimate effieciency and utility, by far.

Lava_Croft

Garion wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Buy game for massive PvP, complain about large groups.

I'm still impressed.

It's not the "massive PvP" I am predominantly concerned with, it's the blobbing of raids that causes issue and the current state of barrier increases the viability of such behaviour. But as you have taken the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality I don't expect to be able to change your mind!

In any event, ZOS themselves - who marketed this game as offering large scale PvP - have indicated that they would like people to spread out; I am simply offering them an idea to make the zerg blobbing style of play more difficult to achieve, thus discouraging it.

I guess playing solo for a year weighs as heavy as joining groups for a few months. I also guess that when you and your friends blob up and spam AoE, it's totally different than when other groups do it, just because you and your friends don't have a 24-man raid and every group that has more players than you do is obviously a zerg. Don't worry though, this point of view is present among every faction and every group.

My original comment was more aimed at the people in this thread implying that a 24-man raid is a zerg, while in reality it's nothing more than a full group. My personal opinion is that once you exceed the size of a 24-man raid, you are entering zerg territory.

Xsorus

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Ahh, then a cap on amount of players would probably be only thing to stop it then.

Could you please give us more details : what do you think of the suggestion made earlier on this thread : 6 ppl or 12 ppl cap ? What would be the most relevant against zerg in your opinion ?

Probably 6, since that's the cap on most heals in the game.

Tintinabula

barrier I believe needs target cap..if you want an entire zerg to have barrier you need to split the zerg up and have them separate into barrier groups..Purge?..not for sure about purge considering siege damage now.

AltusVenifus

Garion wrote: »

I have posted before about the current state of PvP and some suggestions I had for trying to move people away from the current zerg meta that dominates Cyrodiil. Not everyone agrees with my stance, but I am strongly behind creating a Cyrodiil when playing in smaller groups is viable either in small scale PvP or with a smaller group being able to take on larger groups.

Currently barrier provides a shield for an entire 24 man zerg blob. If they have just half of that group cycling barriers, that's an additional 240,000 damage (if the average barrier provides a 20k shield) any opposing force has to output in order to event start denting that group. Aside from this, with enough barriers in a raid barrier can be up permanently on a well organised rotation, making it virtually impossible to kill the zerg blob. The inevitable then happens... an endless battle ensues as more and more people pour into a keep and before you know it the server might as well be dead.

As a smaller group, it is impossible to do anything against these larger groups so long as they can cycle barriers in this way. If Zenimax are truly committed to 'spreading people out' in Cyrodiil and discouraging the zerg blob behaviour, a nerf to barrier is needed.

In an ideal world, I'd like to see barrier capped @ 6. In doing this, barrier would remain a viable ultimate for use in dungeons and trials as well as for smaller groups in PvP. For larger groups, it would simply mean that they would have to cycle more barriers (four per rotation to shield the entire raid) thus bringing them back into balance when facing a smaller force. They still have the advantage when compared to a smaller group (as they should), but it makes it viable for a smaller group of individuals to defend an outpost or keep versus a zerg / zerg blob.

Of course I understand there is going to be fierce opposition to this, but I am hoping that ZOS will pay attention to the fact that almost every change they have made only benefits the zerg mentality and look to make changes to skills such as these to reduce the attraction of this particular style of play. If they are totally against this, then I think that there should be some consideration on reducing / capping the shield size at 10k. This is still a very strong shield - particularly as it will shield the entire group - but it will significantly reduce the protection it provides to zerg blobs.

Anyway, discuss.

Just penalize groups above the size of 8 with 1% exp and 1% cp... zergs fixed. If players still want to run in a zerg they have to have the tradeoff of crap gains.

ToRelax

AltusVenifus wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

I have posted before about the current state of PvP and some suggestions I had for trying to move people away from the current zerg meta that dominates Cyrodiil. Not everyone agrees with my stance, but I am strongly behind creating a Cyrodiil when playing in smaller groups is viable either in small scale PvP or with a smaller group being able to take on larger groups.

Currently barrier provides a shield for an entire 24 man zerg blob. If they have just half of that group cycling barriers, that's an additional 240,000 damage (if the average barrier provides a 20k shield) any opposing force has to output in order to event start denting that group. Aside from this, with enough barriers in a raid barrier can be up permanently on a well organised rotation, making it virtually impossible to kill the zerg blob. The inevitable then happens... an endless battle ensues as more and more people pour into a keep and before you know it the server might as well be dead.

As a smaller group, it is impossible to do anything against these larger groups so long as they can cycle barriers in this way. If Zenimax are truly committed to 'spreading people out' in Cyrodiil and discouraging the zerg blob behaviour, a nerf to barrier is needed.

In an ideal world, I'd like to see barrier capped @ 6. In doing this, barrier would remain a viable ultimate for use in dungeons and trials as well as for smaller groups in PvP. For larger groups, it would simply mean that they would have to cycle more barriers (four per rotation to shield the entire raid) thus bringing them back into balance when facing a smaller force. They still have the advantage when compared to a smaller group (as they should), but it makes it viable for a smaller group of individuals to defend an outpost or keep versus a zerg / zerg blob.

Of course I understand there is going to be fierce opposition to this, but I am hoping that ZOS will pay attention to the fact that almost every change they have made only benefits the zerg mentality and look to make changes to skills such as these to reduce the attraction of this particular style of play. If they are totally against this, then I think that there should be some consideration on reducing / capping the shield size at 10k. This is still a very strong shield - particularly as it will shield the entire group - but it will significantly reduce the protection it provides to zerg blobs.

Anyway, discuss.

Just penalize groups above the size of 8 with 1% exp and 1% cp... zergs fixed. If players still want to run in a zerg they have to have the tradeoff of crap gains.

Or they simply run 3 times as many groups and still blob up together .