So what's the counter to ball groups in U40?

SkaraMinoc

Enlighten me.

Janni

Their biggest vulnerability is that they are humans. So they sometimes mess up and make bad decisions. As a result they might die. After that you win?

Tommy_The_Gun

To my knowledge, there are SOME counters that Ball Groups players will claim that there are and you should use them, but in practise there are really no hard counters that would really hurt them much.

The only thing one can really do once the ball group shows up is to either move to different objective and try to capture it before Ball Group will realise that all their AP has moved, or you can try to go into hiding and "wait them over".

Seriously, it has gotten to the point when even ball groups avoid each other because for the most part even other ball group can not stop other ball group. Sure, the may try and one of them "may" eventually win, but it is nothing certain and for the most part both will just waste time. So instead Ball Groups tend to go for the lowest "time vs reward" and they go for zergs consisting of solo players or empty keeps or elder scrolls, so they could troll everyone trying to re-take them.

Now, PVP MMO seems to draw a very specific type of players, because every time it is mentioned some people (mostly ball groups players) seems to get offended by it and are like: How dare you point that out ! What I am talking about is an obvious disproportion in power and how one play style dominates over the others. In ESO history, every playstyle that was strong got nerfed in the past at some point (Bow Ganking Snipe based builds are a good example). But the thing is that even though Ball Group play style is definitely in OP/Broken/Meta category it never ever received a direct nerf that would hurt only Ball Groups (which is weird because it is actually easy to do). So I do think that we will never have a dev response to this issue and Ball Groups will remain a "a blot on the landscape" in the ESO PvP - simply because it is most likely intened by the devs. I mean, if it wasn't intended, then ball groups would get balanced long time ago.

OBJnoob

Have you guys/gals ever run in a small-scale group that could kill 2 or 3 times their own number?

Have you ever been in a high mmr group que Deathmatch battleground?

Good groups, big or small, are capable of farming players. And good groups, big or small, sometimes will stalemate against eachother for very long periods of time. For that matter so will 1v1s.

Ballgroups are problematic because they are the biggest possible group size. But what they do isn't proportionately any different from what other groups do.

Instead of nerfing ballgroups, which would be very hard to do without just blatantly stealing stats and skills from them, shouldn't we just seek to nerf survivability overall? Isn't overall survivability obviously the problem at every level of play including this one?

Making a change such as, for instance, limiting HoT stacks to 4 of each type, would probably make ballgroups weaker. But the small-scalers would continue fighting and killing zergs (in other words less talented ballgroups,) and solo players would still run around Xing. I don't see why one needs changing and not the others. I don't see why one is considered out of balance and not the others.

Could it be that people support Xing simply because they are Xers? And they support outnumbered small-scale because they are small-scalers? And they seek an end to ballgroups because they are not ballgroupers?

The counter to ballgroups is the same as it has always been. Get a big group yourself and fight better than them.

There's no fair reason, much less a "balanced" suggestion, for why a larger number of players needs to be handicapped against a smaller number of players. The game (cyrodiil,) is meant to be played in groups. Not that you HAVE to... You can run around doing all sorts of other things and having success and fun by yourself or in very small groups... But in the end most of us wouldn't want to take the time, solo, to bust down 2 doors wipe all NPCs and flip two flags. So it's just an implied fact that you should group up.

Since the max group size was arbitrarily chosen to be 12, guess what, those that min/max their group of 12 are going to be the biggest fish in the sea. It just is what it is. It'd be the same at 20 or at 8. As I said earlier it's also very similar at 4 or at 1.

The only real difference is that if a group of 4 hangs around the same spot long enough they'll eventually get overrun. But that isn't because of any broken mechanics ballgroups have that 4-mans don't. It's literally because it's easier to get 12 (or whatever number may be the limit of what a particular small-scale can handle,) people to eventually come together than 36.

The best solution really is probably making max group size smaller. And when I've said this before people are quick to suggest that ballgroups would just run 2 groups together, organized through discord or Xbox party or whatever, and therefore effectively bypass the limit. But what this suggestion doesn't seem to take into account is that the max group size did in fact used to be bigger. But ballgroups are 12 people. So there's no real evidence to suggest they would do that... Since they don't do that currently.

Sleep724

The counter is not to go into Cyrodill in the first place.

RoxyPhoenix

Many ppl compare ballgroups to trial groups, both highly coordinated, pre-made with specific playstyles, discord commands and clear objectives. By that comparison, the usual cyro player, either pug or solo, must by definition feel like a trash mob from a trial dungeon. Imagine being that skeleton, empowered by the presence of dozens of other skeletons like you, being obliterated in a split second by a group of 12 unkillable gods made of pure light.

OtarTheMad

Siege can counter them pretty well. Stone trebs need to be timed real well but hit hard. Also scattershot and meat catapults are good to use as well. Coldfire is also great. If you are in a group you might be able to time a siege-ult dump combo.

You also need some CC’s and friends to ult dump them. Negate is a great ultimate but ball groups will just run through that if they aren’t CC’d and it’s the only ult. Abilities like Streak, Talons, Encase, Time Stop, caltrops, anything that slows them like frost, any fears can mess up a ball groups timing. Never be afraid to use abilities that aren’t popular either. An ult like Meteor and/or one of the Fire Rune morphs will knock an enemy up in the air, that can mess with them. Also Javelin and knockbacks can sometimes knock an enemy off a keep which is not only hilarious but good.

If you EVER see a ball group stop running and just standing in one stop, don’t plan on staying long because they are about to charge. Just jump off the wall or keep roof and run back in. Choke points and corners are also NOT your friend, don’t follow them very much. If they don’t kill you, they don’t get AP and they might just leave. Other side of that is you and your group might catch them off guard and they might make a mistake and die.

gariondavey

OBJnoob wrote: »

Have you guys/gals ever run in a small-scale group that could kill 2 or 3 times their own number?

Have you ever been in a high mmr group que Deathmatch battleground?

Good groups, big or small, are capable of farming players. And good groups, big or small, sometimes will stalemate against eachother for very long periods of time. For that matter so will 1v1s.

Ballgroups are problematic because they are the biggest possible group size. But what they do isn't proportionately any different from what other groups do.

Instead of nerfing ballgroups, which would be very hard to do without just blatantly stealing stats and skills from them, shouldn't we just seek to nerf survivability overall? Isn't overall survivability obviously the problem at every level of play including this one?

Making a change such as, for instance, limiting HoT stacks to 4 of each type, would probably make ballgroups weaker. But the small-scalers would continue fighting and killing zergs (in other words less talented ballgroups,) and solo players would still run around Xing. I don't see why one needs changing and not the others. I don't see why one is considered out of balance and not the others.

Could it be that people support Xing simply because they are Xers? And they support outnumbered small-scale because they are small-scalers? And they seek an end to ballgroups because they are not ballgroupers?

The counter to ballgroups is the same as it has always been. Get a big group yourself and fight better than them.

There's no fair reason, much less a "balanced" suggestion, for why a larger number of players needs to be handicapped against a smaller number of players. The game (cyrodiil,) is meant to be played in groups. Not that you HAVE to... You can run around doing all sorts of other things and having success and fun by yourself or in very small groups... But in the end most of us wouldn't want to take the time, solo, to bust down 2 doors wipe all NPCs and flip two flags. So it's just an implied fact that you should group up.

Since the max group size was arbitrarily chosen to be 12, guess what, those that min/max their group of 12 are going to be the biggest fish in the sea. It just is what it is. It'd be the same at 20 or at 8. As I said earlier it's also very similar at 4 or at 1.

The only real difference is that if a group of 4 hangs around the same spot long enough they'll eventually get overrun. But that isn't because of any broken mechanics ballgroups have that 4-mans don't. It's literally because it's easier to get 12 (or whatever number may be the limit of what a particular small-scale can handle,) people to eventually come together than 36.

The best solution really is probably making max group size smaller. And when I've said this before people are quick to suggest that ballgroups would just run 2 groups together, organized through discord or Xbox party or whatever, and therefore effectively bypass the limit. But what this suggestion doesn't seem to take into account is that the max group size did in fact used to be bigger. But ballgroups are 12 people. So there's no real evidence to suggest they would do that... Since they don't do that currently.

If group limit was 6 ballgroups would be weaker even as 2x6 due to sets buffing your group. Limiting hots would be big though, for sure.

KlauthWarthog

Logging off.

i11ionward

Nerf stack HoTs and ballgroups will never be as strong as before. Although for ordinary players it’s unlikely that anything will change. But at least one ballgroup will be able to kill another more often.

CameraBeardThePirate

The real answer is siege. Smartly timed/placed meatbags and coldfire will kill a ball group just like any other - especially if they're in the middle of a bombing run.

Joy_Division

Intelligence.

Necrotech_Master

combination of siege + cc + negate

OBJnoob

gariondavey wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Have you guys/gals ever run in a small-scale group that could kill 2 or 3 times their own number?

Have you ever been in a high mmr group que Deathmatch battleground?

Good groups, big or small, are capable of farming players. And good groups, big or small, sometimes will stalemate against eachother for very long periods of time. For that matter so will 1v1s.

Ballgroups are problematic because they are the biggest possible group size. But what they do isn't proportionately any different from what other groups do.

Instead of nerfing ballgroups, which would be very hard to do without just blatantly stealing stats and skills from them, shouldn't we just seek to nerf survivability overall? Isn't overall survivability obviously the problem at every level of play including this one?

Making a change such as, for instance, limiting HoT stacks to 4 of each type, would probably make ballgroups weaker. But the small-scalers would continue fighting and killing zergs (in other words less talented ballgroups,) and solo players would still run around Xing. I don't see why one needs changing and not the others. I don't see why one is considered out of balance and not the others.

Could it be that people support Xing simply because they are Xers? And they support outnumbered small-scale because they are small-scalers? And they seek an end to ballgroups because they are not ballgroupers?

The counter to ballgroups is the same as it has always been. Get a big group yourself and fight better than them.

There's no fair reason, much less a "balanced" suggestion, for why a larger number of players needs to be handicapped against a smaller number of players. The game (cyrodiil,) is meant to be played in groups. Not that you HAVE to... You can run around doing all sorts of other things and having success and fun by yourself or in very small groups... But in the end most of us wouldn't want to take the time, solo, to bust down 2 doors wipe all NPCs and flip two flags. So it's just an implied fact that you should group up.

Since the max group size was arbitrarily chosen to be 12, guess what, those that min/max their group of 12 are going to be the biggest fish in the sea. It just is what it is. It'd be the same at 20 or at 8. As I said earlier it's also very similar at 4 or at 1.

The only real difference is that if a group of 4 hangs around the same spot long enough they'll eventually get overrun. But that isn't because of any broken mechanics ballgroups have that 4-mans don't. It's literally because it's easier to get 12 (or whatever number may be the limit of what a particular small-scale can handle,) people to eventually come together than 36.

The best solution really is probably making max group size smaller. And when I've said this before people are quick to suggest that ballgroups would just run 2 groups together, organized through discord or Xbox party or whatever, and therefore effectively bypass the limit. But what this suggestion doesn't seem to take into account is that the max group size did in fact used to be bigger. But ballgroups are 12 people. So there's no real evidence to suggest they would do that... Since they don't do that currently.

If group limit was 6 ballgroups would be weaker even as 2x6 due to sets buffing your group. Limiting hots would be big though, for sure.

Yes, thank you for that point, that's also very important.

And I know that limiting HoT stacks would help as well it just strikes me as kinda unfair and therefore like an "artificial balance." Because realistically groups of 6 aren't supposed to have as much healing as groups of 12 so why would we try to equalize that??

Resolving Vigor is 4 or 5 times as strong as Echoing Vigor, so any suggestion that Echoing should stack less than 5 times, or hit less than 5 targets, strikes me as an immediate no. It renders the morph effectively useless, though I do realize a ballgroup might still have 5 people use Echoing while everybody else uses Resolving. But again if you consider that Resolving is 5x as strong, the result is really a very similar amount of healing on each target. Hardly worth eliminating an entire way to play over.

Limiting group size to 6 would be a nice change I think. For one thing it might lessen lag and therefore increase performance.

For another thing small-scalers would be basically indistinguishable from ballgroups. They'd be the same. No more excuses and no more complaints.

And a possible third benefit might be (looking at it from a casual/zerg/pug perspective,) that it'd be easier to get invited to a group. Half group size means twice as many groups means twice as many crowns.

SmellyUnlimited

I’m going to sound like a total noob here, but for others who may be similarly situated, can anyone enlighten me as to what “exactly” a ball group is?

OBJnoob

@SmellyUnlimited A ballgroup is so named because of the tight proximity to eachother with which they operate. But basically it's just a group of 12 people who took the time to discuss and organize their gear and skills before fighting, sometimes resulting in exponentially greater power than other similar sized groups.

SmellyUnlimited

OBJnoob wrote: »

@SmellyUnlimited A ballgroup is so named because of the tight proximity to eachother with which they operate. But basically it's just a group of 12 people who took the time to discuss and organize their gear and skills before fighting, sometimes resulting in exponentially greater power than other similar sized groups.

Ah, okay, I think I’m familiar with this then. I just started back on the game after 6 or so years and joined a PvP guild randomly. They’re constantly asking for particular “roles” for the group, but not the normal “dps” or “healer,” but rather “sorc with negate,” or “spin to win warden.” It gets obnoxious sometimes because they’re super picky about their groups and they won’t let just any guild member join up and play. I know the lead guy, who tends to be on somehow at all hours of the day, is a bomber, who wants all team members to revolve their activities entirely around him. Half the time I don’t even bother queuing into Cyrodil because of it.

Arcanasx

Being able to better coordinate their movement and time their attacks together wasn't enough of an advantage apparently. So over time they also really needed all the separate group buff sets and stat stacking inflation to super charge their offensive sets and defensive skills that only they can take the most advantage of. So not only do they have the advantage of superior coordination, they also get to have access to better character stats while drowning in obnoxious autopilot levels of HPS.

OBJnoob

@SmellyUnlimited Yes depending on what you like it can be very restrictive, bossy, unfun, etc. That sort of rigidity does have the best results though, for myriad reasons, but it's certainly not for everyone. You sacrifice a lot of freedom and fun for success. But a lot of people derive fun from success-- so you have to understand that side of it.

Ultimately if I were you I might find another guild to play with. There are more people NOT like that than there are like that.

Myself-- I've never played in a ballgroup. I've been a member of several guild groups that were mostly capable of wrecking everything on the map... But we mostly just did it in our own builds, being decent players and using voice communication. Occasionally a real ballgroup would show up and pack us up then we'd start talking about all the smart teamworky things we should do. Then the next day everybody shows up in their same old crap LOL.

SmellyUnlimited

Ha, yeah, I mean I’m all about winning in PvP (and trying not to die consistently), but I remember it just being more engaging personally when it was less about ball group-type play and more about fun people to chat with. When I’ve grouped with the guild in their ball groups, the atmosphere is not the usual light-hearted jokey type you would expect in a video game, but rather a more serious “point and shoot” no monkeying around undertone. I probably should look for another guild to run with, although it sounds like ball groups are becoming the norm.

SandandStars

Play Call of Duty 😉

Stamicka

Heal stacking is stupidly strong and still needs to be addressed/adjusted by the devs. Unfortunately other than forming your own ballgroup, there's not many counters. ZOS needs to finally address this.

jerj6925

Ball groups is a protected play style if you think about it, the number one thing they do when going on the offensive is spam something to trigger dark convergence. An armor set that breaks the game, many time I die before I can even see dark convergence has gone off, I still get pulled through walls or door and to this day still will some times just crash out my game. Developers won't touch this set, it's too vital to the ball groups.

Best counter to Ball groups in my opinion was Hrothgars chill because ball groups need to huddle to survive. This made hrothgars armor very effective in those situations. Who cried about free kills from Hrothgars chill? BALL GROUPS did, what happen to hrothrgar? Developers destroyed the armor and no one runs it. What gets more free kills than any other armor set... dark convergence does and it breaks the game when enough people use it, and the armor set remains unchanged.

I would like to see Hrothgars put back to its release stats if dark convergence is to remain unchanged, but I don't think it will happen as ball group play style is a protected play style.

RetPing

Port somewhere else and ignore them.

Until devs will put a limit on the heal stacking totally broken mechanic you can only feed them the easy kills they crave.

loosej

Best counter to ballgroups is leaving and attacking a different objective. Most of them have zero interest in playing objectives, they just want easy ap by farming other players and/or attention by posting youtube videos. If there's nobody around to farm they get bored and move on.

Amottica

The counters to ball groups is as it has been most of the time. It starts with a good leader who can see how things develop and commands their group accordingly. Of course that means the group is well organized, does as they have been asked, and uses specific skills they are asked to use.

moo_2021

OBJnoob wrote: »

Making a change such as, for instance, limiting HoT stacks to 4 of each type, would probably make ballgroups weaker. But the small-scalers would continue fighting and killing zergs (in other words less talented ballgroups,) and solo players would still run around Xing. I don't see why one needs changing and not the others. I don't see why one is considered out of balance and not the others.

No more healing, only base health regen for everyone.

Twohothardware

They need to nerf heal stacking hard and change the way damage is calculated so that glass cannon builds deal considerably more damage (and heals) than builds with 40k health and 35k resistances. We have players built as tanks now who play the role of DPS and healers. A healer should be a glass cannon, not a tank.

ArchMikem

Ball Groups can only be stopped by other Balls and their Bombs. Skill/Ult dumps all have to be timed just right. MagSorcs with Negate are needed, but if there isn't a Bomb group on your side to challenge them? Have fun being farmed.

PvP is in a terrible place.

Tiphis

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Siege can counter them pretty well. Stone trebs need to be timed real well but hit hard. Also scattershot and meat catapults are good to use as well. Coldfire is also great. If you are in a group you might be able to time a siege-ult dump combo.

Sure but they don't just stand there and they kite well, and timing trebs to use on them while great is borderline impossible. Like not even recommended impossible.

OtarTheMad wrote: »

You also need some CC’s and friends to ult dump them. Negate is a great ultimate but ball groups will just run through that if they aren’t CC’d and it’s the only ult. Abilities like Streak, Talons, Encase, Time Stop, caltrops, anything that slows them like frost, any fears can mess up a ball groups timing. Never be afraid to use abilities that aren’t popular either. An ult like Meteor and/or one of the Fire Rune morphs will knock an enemy up in the air, that can mess with them. Also Javelin and knockbacks can sometimes knock an enemy off a keep which is not only hilarious but good.

Unless they run striders in which case don't bother with snare/roots. And if there are pugs using ccs on cd then don't bother trying to hard cc them.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The real answer is siege. Smartly timed/placed meatbags and coldfire will kill a ball group just like any other - especially if they're in the middle of a bombing run.

No they won't. They have enough outhealing to render meatbags mostly useless. Coldfire ballistas hurt, but again largely mitigated.

Amottica wrote: »

The counters to ball groups is as it has been most of the time. It starts with a good leader who can see how things develop and commands their group accordingly. Of course that means the group is well organized, does as they have been asked, and uses specific skills they are asked to use.

... you just described a ball group. Ball groups aren't actually a counter to ball groups as that's a logical fallacy. If zos decides tomorrow that whip is the coolest ability ever created, because let's be honest flaming whips are in fact awesome, and so they make it 22m range with a pull (balrog flame whip anyone?) and made it do 10x more damage then currently; by that logic it wouldn't be op because it is countered by other dk's using it.

Skoomah

The counter to ball groups:

- Numbers game, with all things being equal, fights come down to numbers, it’s not realistic to expect to come out in top when it’s 4vs12
- Superior theorycrafting
- Superior tactics

So bottom line, numbers and experience