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

TankHealz2015

Twohothardware wrote: »

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.

Interesting. This kinda speaks to the armor weights. I looked at Light Armor passives and don't see a compelling reason to wear it over medium or heavy. And actually, as a not good PvPer, I get way more benefit from heavy armor.

Maybe a review of the armor passives could be part of a solution?

ClowdyAllDay

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

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.

so essentially, people who learned to play well together.

WaywardArgonian

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

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.

Interesting. This kinda speaks to the armor weights. I looked at Light Armor passives and don't see a compelling reason to wear it over medium or heavy. And actually, as a not good PvPer, I get way more benefit from heavy armor.

Maybe a review of the armor passives could be part of a solution?

For as far as I know, the better ballgroup healers don't wear a lot of light armor for that reason: the passives offer little benefit compared to medium. I use 5 medium myself, but that's on no proc where we don't have Snow-Treaders.

SkaraMinoc

I used to stop ball groups by identifying the player with Rush of Agony, gap close, then Acuity Onslaught into Overload Power Slam and bash weave. It's not possible to do that anymore now that ball groups run tankier builds and use Gibbering Shelter.

master_vanargand

Your wish can be achieved by acquiring all shares of ZeniMax.
You can understand the reason without me telling you, right?

Kordai

I mean they have buffed the playstyle constantly, it is the desired playstyle by zos evidently. They should just finish what they started and just make having a 12 man group a requirement to enter cyro.

Kartalin

Your standard ball group healer will be in 5 medium armor, frequently 5 med and 2 light as most buff sets (spc, trans, etc) are light armor.

Typical build: 2 pc monster set in medium, 2 medium trainee on body, snow treaders (medium), 2 light armor buff set pieces, 3 jewelry buff set pieces, and arena weapons (master and maelstrom restos).

With major and minor resolve from group and the ozezans armor buff we probably land in the 22-25k resists range, decent but not ridiculous. There's other forms of mitigation like crit resist and major evasion but that's where we are.

RetPing

Kordai wrote: »

I mean they have buffed the playstyle constantly, it is the desired playstyle by zos evidently. They should just finish what they started and just make having a 12 man group a requirement to enter cyro.

It's not secret that ZOS wanted to make game easier so more people can enjoy it.
Look at all the sets/mythic like oakensoul that made hard PvE content more enjoble for lot of people.

So let's look at ESO ballgrouper typical gameplay:
spam shieldz, spam healz, wait fot an oppurtinity to crutch on RoA, spam aoe. Follow crown all the time.

To do this gameplay you only really need one person that knows what to do, others have only to follow orders.
So this kind of gameplay is very healty for the game. Anyone can enjoy PvP this way and think they are very good at it.

Kartalin

RetPing wrote: »

To do this gameplay you only really need one person that knows what to do, others have only to follow orders.

This kind of reasoning seems rampant in these forums, but having been in a variety of groups I can assure you that there's a good portion of the playerbase that doesn't have the necessary focus, situational awareness, or timing to participate in a ball group and be successful. Frequently it just takes one weak link to get the entire group in a bad position. Every single player of the 12 plays a critical role in some way, and if even one gets in a bad position and goes down, then group effectiveness takes a serious hit.

edit: There's no waiting either. While in combat each member of the 12 will maintain at least 60 casts per minute, which will be higher with light attack weaving (at least according to esologs which tracks light attacks as additional casts).

Kordai

RetPing wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

I mean they have buffed the playstyle constantly, it is the desired playstyle by zos evidently. They should just finish what they started and just make having a 12 man group a requirement to enter cyro.

It's not secret that ZOS wanted to make game easier so more people can enjoy it.
Look at all the sets/mythic like oakensoul that made hard PvE content more enjoble for lot of people.

So let's look at ESO ballgrouper typical gameplay:
spam shieldz, spam healz, wait fot an oppurtinity to crutch on RoA, spam aoe. Follow crown all the time.

To do this gameplay you only really need one person that knows what to do, others have only to follow orders.
So this kind of gameplay is very healty for the game. Anyone can enjoy PvP this way and think they are very good at it.

Sure except I was talking about the buffs to stuff only they use, as in nonexistant in every other aspect of this game.

Kartalin wrote: »

RetPing wrote: »

To do this gameplay you only really need one person that knows what to do, others have only to follow orders.

This kind of reasoning seems rampant in these forums, but having been in a variety of groups I can assure you that there's a good portion of the playerbase that doesn't have the necessary focus, situational awareness, or timing to participate in a ball group and be successful. Frequently it just takes one weak link to get the entire group in a bad position. Every single player of the 12 plays a critical role in some way, and if even one gets in a bad position and goes down, then group effectiveness takes a serious hit.

edit: There's no waiting either. While in combat each member of the 12 will maintain at least 60 casts per minute, which will be higher with light attack weaving (at least according to esologs which tracks light attacks as additional casts).

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

Kartalin

Kordai wrote: »

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

I'm not denying that the RL needs a certain skill set, particularly timing and awareness. DPS have to be able to respond in kind, reacting and casting the specific spells that line up their burst and arriving at the target on time. Healers have to weave HoTs, but also have to understand when burst healing is needed. They also have to have their damage synergies placed correctly for the dps to hit while also managing their buffs. Our dps and support provide important group buffs as well. All members have to know how to avoid being pulled by RoA/DC and if they do how to escape the anticipated damage burst. Add to this being CC'd on cooldown and it further complicates things.

Even if I'm the "rapids spammer" I'll still have at least 8 of my 10 abilities active at any given time, each with their unique cooldowns.

I will say that part of it depends on the group you run in. The more successful groups will have very complex setups and ask a lot more of different roles than others perhaps realize.

Iriidius

Arcanasx wrote: »

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 uand 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.

Yeah, ballgroups stat buffs get some of the biggest in the game, almost as strong as emperor and they have more healing than even an emperor on every ballgroup member, but they pretend they are better just because of skill and better coordination like these buffs doesn't even exist. If these buffs wouldn’t exist and they really only won by skill and better coordination than ZOS really couldn‘t do anything against them being stronger, but then ZOS also wouldn‘t have to because they would win in a less unfair way.

Kartalin wrote: »

Your standard ball group healer will be in 5 medium armor, frequently 5 med and 2 light as most buff sets (spc, trans, etc) are light armor.

Typical build: 2 pc monster set in medium, 2 medium trainee on body, snow treaders (medium), 2 light armor buff set pieces, 3 jewelry buff set pieces, and arena weapons (master and maelstrom restos).

With major and minor resolve from group and the ozezans armor buff we probably land in the 22-25k resists range, decent but not ridiculous. There's other forms of mitigation like crit resist and major evasion but that's where we are.

Many people in Cyrodiil are using 5 medium, even 50k hp wardens/other classes, it is Meta atm. With minor+major resolve and ozezan you should be able to get more than 22-25k resistance, probably more like 26-30k. If you don't need medium armor skill, It would make more sense to go heavy chest of trainee. You also get 1410 extra crit resistance by transmutation and you get rallyng cry by someone in your group. Also most ballgroup members have 35-40k hp. If Ballgroup players weren't much tankier than players in solo builds, a nb with incap+spectral bow or an acuity dk or a warden could oneshot them as easy as solo players one by one and noone would complain about ballgroups beeing to tanky, but currently even the strongest most glasscanon build can‘t burst down a ballgroup player even when they are already fighting multiple times their own numbers and hit by coldfire ballista.

Kordai wrote: »

I mean they have buffed the playstyle constantly, it is the desired playstyle by zos evidently. They should just finish what they started and just make having a 12 man group a requirement to enter cyro.

I hope this requirement is irony. A12 man group requirement would make all solo and smallscalers players leave the game. PuGs also probably wouldnt exist anymore, because they usually only form when already in Cyrodiil. Organized 12 man Zergs would probably quit too, because now they dont have solo/smallscales/PuGs to zerg down anymore and dont want any competitive fights.
Blackreach and Ravenwatch dead 24/7 now. Ballgroups couldnt farm faction stacks but only each other which gets boring after a while, so probably they would GvG sometimes in the evening, but for the rest of the day Grey Host would e dead. Sometimes organized PvDoor groups would PvDoor the map enjoying that defenders cant even enter Cyrodiil, if they get together 12 people. Ballgroups will get bored of only fighting each other or loose members until they are not able to enter Cyrodiil anymore and finally disband. Now Cyrodiil is so empty that even Solo players could take over whole map or defend it if they were allowed to enter.

olsborg

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Enlighten me.

If theres too many ballgroups wherever you may roam in cyrodiil, the good old "alt+f4" has a 100% chance to lighten my mood.

Kordai

Kartalin wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

I'm not denying that the RL needs a certain skill set, particularly timing and awareness. DPS have to be able to respond in kind, reacting and casting the specific spells that line up their burst and arriving at the target on time. Healers have to weave HoTs, but also have to understand when burst healing is needed. They also have to have their damage synergies placed correctly for the dps to hit while also managing their buffs. Our dps and support provide important group buffs as well. All members have to know how to avoid being pulled by RoA/DC and if they do how to escape the anticipated damage burst. Add to this being CC'd on cooldown and it further complicates things.

Even if I'm the "rapids spammer" I'll still have at least 8 of my 10 abilities active at any given time, each with their unique cooldowns.

I will say that part of it depends on the group you run in. The more successful groups will have very complex setups and ask a lot more of different roles than others perhaps realize.

So basically what everybody else in pvp has to do but without the necessary awareness or judgement.

ItsNotLiving

Azureblight, Plaguebreak, Siege, Snake in the Stars had some potential. At the end of the day not running around a top floor of a keep is a good one or bare minimum type in zone and a ballgroup who’s upset with the other ballgroup is the best counter.

Joy_Division

Kordai wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

I'm not denying that the RL needs a certain skill set, particularly timing and awareness. DPS have to be able to respond in kind, reacting and casting the specific spells that line up their burst and arriving at the target on time. Healers have to weave HoTs, but also have to understand when burst healing is needed. They also have to have their damage synergies placed correctly for the dps to hit while also managing their buffs. Our dps and support provide important group buffs as well. All members have to know how to avoid being pulled by RoA/DC and if they do how to escape the anticipated damage burst. Add to this being CC'd on cooldown and it further complicates things.

Even if I'm the "rapids spammer" I'll still have at least 8 of my 10 abilities active at any given time, each with their unique cooldowns.

I will say that part of it depends on the group you run in. The more successful groups will have very complex setups and ask a lot more of different roles than others perhaps realize.

So basically what everybody else in pvp has to do but without the necessary awareness or judgement.

Ever wonder why some groups are far and away better than others?

Tiphis

Kartalin wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

I'm not denying that the RL needs a certain skill set, particularly timing and awareness. DPS have to be able to respond in kind, reacting and casting the specific spells that line up their burst and arriving at the target on time. Healers have to weave HoTs, but also have to understand when burst healing is needed. They also have to have their damage synergies placed correctly for the dps to hit while also managing their buffs. Our dps and support provide important group buffs as well. All members have to know how to avoid being pulled by RoA/DC and if they do how to escape the anticipated damage burst. Add to this being CC'd on cooldown and it further complicates things.

Even if I'm the "rapids spammer" I'll still have at least 8 of my 10 abilities active at any given time, each with their unique cooldowns.

I will say that part of it depends on the group you run in. The more successful groups will have very complex setups and ask a lot more of different roles than others perhaps realize.

I mean alot of that is true just to be a viable player in most of the game and most similar games in general. Being able to do any of that unto itself is not that difficult. Everybody but the RL simply has alot less to think about than solos or small scalers. That fact really can't be denied. Correctly gauging where to go at any point is vital, and is mostly removed from non-RL ball groups. If you are on the scroll side mid stairs does each individual person make the choice between: going up, going down, staying there or jumping? When the RL says to jump should one of the healers decide not to? What about the bomber who thinks going down and bombing would be better? Should they do that or should they follow RL's direction? Does any individual make a macro location adjustment? Does the healer see an fc and decide to go burn it down or do they make note of it to the RL who then choose what to do about it?

Joy_Division wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Eh for the most part only the RL needs good situational awareness and timing. They have by far the highest skill and focus requirements of all of pvp but not so much the rest of the group.

I'm not denying that the RL needs a certain skill set, particularly timing and awareness. DPS have to be able to respond in kind, reacting and casting the specific spells that line up their burst and arriving at the target on time. Healers have to weave HoTs, but also have to understand when burst healing is needed. They also have to have their damage synergies placed correctly for the dps to hit while also managing their buffs. Our dps and support provide important group buffs as well. All members have to know how to avoid being pulled by RoA/DC and if they do how to escape the anticipated damage burst. Add to this being CC'd on cooldown and it further complicates things.

Even if I'm the "rapids spammer" I'll still have at least 8 of my 10 abilities active at any given time, each with their unique cooldowns.

I will say that part of it depends on the group you run in. The more successful groups will have very complex setups and ask a lot more of different roles than others perhaps realize.

So basically what everybody else in pvp has to do but without the necessary awareness or judgement.

Ever wonder why some groups are far and away better than others?

You could have had a better opening for a strawman.

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Azureblight, Plaguebreak, Siege, Snake in the Stars had some potential. At the end of the day not running around a top floor of a keep is a good one or bare minimum type in zone and a ballgroup who’s upset with the other ballgroup is the best counter.

I think people enjoy the map/castle play as it's largely what sets this game apart from others. Much of the impact of siege on ball groups was nullified with the advent of striders and the buffing of rapids. Granted RAT did plenty too unfortunately.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Tiphis wrote: »

I mean alot of that is true just to be a viable player in most of the game and most similar games in general. Being able to do any of that unto itself is not that difficult. Everybody but the RL simply has alot less to think about than solos or small scalers. That fact really can't be denied. Correctly gauging where to go at any point is vital, and is mostly removed from non-RL ball groups. If you are on the scroll side mid stairs does each individual person make the choice between: going up, going down, staying there or jumping? When the RL says to jump should one of the healers decide not to? What about the bomber who thinks going down and bombing would be better? Should they do that or should they follow RL's direction? Does any individual make a macro location adjustment? Does the healer see an fc and decide to go burn it down or do they make note of it to the RL who then choose what to do about it?

Just to explain this simply, Yes a high percentage of the groups performance is on the leaders calls and timing (and the groups ability to follow those calls) however there's actually also quite a lot of this type of decision in individual play within the higher end groups. It's actually one of the main things which separates groups from mediocre to higher tier.

lets take your example about jumping down the scroll side stairs.

Generally this type of call would be something like "Jumping towards scroll in 3...2...1..." etc.

• Now as a Support player with Siege shield I might need to decide 'Ok i'm going to go on the 2 in order to get down and place siege shield so that my group is covered at the time they land (when there is a damage spike)'.
• A healer might decide not to jump and instead run down the stairs whilst burst healing
• Another healer might think they should cast a defensive ultimate if there's a lot of pressure before the jump or players will be landing under pressure.
• The Sorc might need to position themselves so they can negate prior to or mid jump
• If the call is to jump and go to one of the flags then some DD's who are low on resources might prefer to go down the stairs and meet the group on the flag because there's potentially less pressure when doing that (depends on which stairs and flag).
• DD's need to think is the jump on a damage window timing, in which case they might expect to use their ulti / position towards expected enemy placement
• DD's might need to throw a burst heal if not in a damage window to ensure that everyone is healed up quickly if some of the healers are struggling
• Players generally need to consider where they are standing / who is standing with them, you don't want all healers clumped after landing because it's a prime negate target.

Generally the lead's job is to take away the 'general' movement direction decisions so that all players know where to roughly go whilst playing their own individual roles in each situation. It's like playing in a smallscale group and someone calling a rough direction to kite towards or that they are under pressure so that the rest of the group can peel for them etc..

Now there are situations also where calls are made and certain players will decide not to follow them also. So for example when trying to flip a keep many players in Drac used to know that they were in a flex group (or some just did it without a group being assigned) who would stay longer on flags to hold them whilst the rest of the group flipped the other flag. They would have to decide how much pressure is at that flag / whether it is worth them holding it or is their contribution needed on the other flag more etc.
Equally we had players who would often go upstairs to handle or delay siege whilst flags were being flipped but they would be very vocal about if they needed help and would jump back down etc. These types of things weren't 'called out' by me as lead it was just decisions that players within the group took and called that they would do and I could call them back if I considered that was better etc.

Theignson

Most of the time you can't do much, as I assume you know. They run around and around the third floor of the keep, logging 20, 30 60 laps.

Eventually they make a mistake and someone bombs them, or they gradually lose one person every 60 seconds,or...they simply get bored and jump off.

Especially since Arcanist, much of the damage they take is absorbed by shields. They have someone spamming shields, and they each have 12+ HOTs on them at all times. They are eternally cc immune, maybe because of snowtreaders, or maybe they are just always in cc immunity.

I cast eruption on them, it "never" snares anyone. I cast fossilize: doesn't work mostly, and if you get close enough to melee you will often die.

I try siege on them, mostly it is absorbed these days by shields; otherwise they just heal through.

Much of the time in Cyrodil I'm not in a group, so I'm useless against the ball groups.

My strategy: repair a wall, then wait for a d tick; then repair the wall gain, etc. you can get a lot of d-ticks from ball groups this way.

Neoauspex

Negate

Heals_With_Orbs

Best counter - stop playing ESO PVP.

Second best counter - move to another part of the map.

There was definitely an increase in ball groups last year, and it got that silly I stopped playing in Cyro.

No point in spending time putting up sieges when a ball group can sprint around a corner and roll over everyone in 2 minutes, with no real counter. When you get a couple of them running around and assisting each other, like AD and DC often do, the game grinds to a halt.

I also got fed up with reading people defending it on the forums with things like

"so what you are saying is other playstyles shouldnt be allowed"
"obv an organised group will be more stronger"
"form your own ball group then"

What these people are clearly saying, is they are ok with the lag they cause, ok with the disconnects, ok with the skills not working, and ok with the dreadful performance drops because of a selfish playstyle thats killed ESO PVP

As ZOS appears to approve of this style, Im no longer interested. Its a bullying playstyle thats totally overpowered. You only have to watch how they hover over keep portals and run around with scrolls inside to see its nothing short of harassment and completely unfair. Its bad enough with all the invisible nightblades hiding all the time and the undeath passive....

RetPing

Heals_With_Orbs wrote: »

As ZOS appears to approve of this style, Im no longer interested. Its a bullying playstyle thats totally overpowered. You only have to watch how they hover over keep portals and run around with scrolls inside to see its nothing short of harassment and completely unfair.

+1

Tiphis

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Tiphis wrote: »

I mean alot of that is true just to be a viable player in most of the game and most similar games in general. Being able to do any of that unto itself is not that difficult. Everybody but the RL simply has alot less to think about than solos or small scalers. That fact really can't be denied. Correctly gauging where to go at any point is vital, and is mostly removed from non-RL ball groups. If you are on the scroll side mid stairs does each individual person make the choice between: going up, going down, staying there or jumping? When the RL says to jump should one of the healers decide not to? What about the bomber who thinks going down and bombing would be better? Should they do that or should they follow RL's direction? Does any individual make a macro location adjustment? Does the healer see an fc and decide to go burn it down or do they make note of it to the RL who then choose what to do about it?

Just to explain this simply, Yes a high percentage of the groups performance is on the leaders calls and timing (and the groups ability to follow those calls) however there's actually also quite a lot of this type of decision in individual play within the higher end groups. It's actually one of the main things which separates groups from mediocre to higher tier.

lets take your example about jumping down the scroll side stairs.

Generally this type of call would be something like "Jumping towards scroll in 3...2...1..." etc.

• Now as a Support player with Siege shield I might need to decide 'Ok i'm going to go on the 2 in order to get down and place siege shield so that my group is covered at the time they land (when there is a damage spike)'.
• A healer might decide not to jump and instead run down the stairs whilst burst healing
• Another healer might think they should cast a defensive ultimate if there's a lot of pressure before the jump or players will be landing under pressure.
• The Sorc might need to position themselves so they can negate prior to or mid jump
• If the call is to jump and go to one of the flags then some DD's who are low on resources might prefer to go down the stairs and meet the group on the flag because there's potentially less pressure when doing that (depends on which stairs and flag).
• DD's need to think is the jump on a damage window timing, in which case they might expect to use their ulti / position towards expected enemy placement
• DD's might need to throw a burst heal if not in a damage window to ensure that everyone is healed up quickly if some of the healers are struggling
• Players generally need to consider where they are standing / who is standing with them, you don't want all healers clumped after landing because it's a prime negate target.

Generally the lead's job is to take away the 'general' movement direction decisions so that all players know where to roughly go whilst playing their own individual roles in each situation. It's like playing in a smallscale group and someone calling a rough direction to kite towards or that they are under pressure so that the rest of the group can peel for them etc..

Now there are situations also where calls are made and certain players will decide not to follow them also. So for example when trying to flip a keep many players in Drac used to know that they were in a flex group (or some just did it without a group being assigned) who would stay longer on flags to hold them whilst the rest of the group flipped the other flag. They would have to decide how much pressure is at that flag / whether it is worth them holding it or is their contribution needed on the other flag more etc.
Equally we had players who would often go upstairs to handle or delay siege whilst flags were being flipped but they would be very vocal about if they needed help and would jump back down etc. These types of things weren't 'called out' by me as lead it was just decisions that players within the group took and called that they would do and I could call them back if I considered that was better etc.

And I agree with everything you said, but the floor for ball group viability is a lot lower than it is for most other playstyles. To be an average solo player you generally need more awareness than your average non-RL ball group player.

This is a cyclical argument that has no real foundation and no end. The baseline for a ball group being average is what? The ability to 12v20? 12v30? While of course the ball group that can 12v30 is better than the ball group that can 12v20 it doesn't actually have any inherent meaning unto itself. If a ball group can 12v40 does that mean they are too powerful? If the ball group is very unskilled then the ability to 12v40 is too powerful. If, however, the ball group is the best and has absolute top tier players then 12v40 might be appropriate. As the floor is relatively high most ball groups that aren't just pug groups can 12v20 easily. So, how many people should a ball group be able to beat? Is 12v50 too powerful? Should the ceiling and floor be lowered? Just the ceiling so that entry level ball groups are still relatively viable?

I'd argue that ball groups have played a not insignificant part in the long time stagnation of the pvp population and therefore the lack of any interest on zos' part. The skill/knowledge gap between new players and more veteran players, solos and ball groups alike, lead to less and less new pvp players. Futility in a game is always dangerous. New players ultimately stand very little to no chance. I 1v12'd a group in IC, and immediately afterwards I felt awful because it was so lopsided. I asked them if they wanted to come back and kill me to get their tel-var back and they didn't seem to care too much about it. Out of that 12 how many decided that pvp was stupid because of it and that after the IC event was over to never come back? How many people join cyro, do the tutorial, read UESP about pvp and go to the crossed swords or a flagged keep. They are there with 30 people fighting a ball group but they don't know anything and keep dying. Frustrated with the sheer futility of it they leave and don't come back. That 1 player means as much to zos and pvp as you or I do. They don't bother learning to pvp because of the sheer futility of it.

Way back when after I was able to solo a few normal dungeons I tried to solo a trial. Of course it went terribly and I only ever tried that once. The sheer futility of it made any attempt to do so pointless. I didn't research better builds, work on weaving better or really study the mechanics because it felt pointless.

Look around at the other players ARs in major cities; how many have actually pvp'd for the sake of pvp, not just vigor/warhorn? Now think about what pvp would look like if a tenth of those did. Better servers years ago, more pvp content, quicker balance adjustments and more QOL changes. During the server tests years ago somebody made a thread about all the "tests" they wanted to see. Little fun events with a radically different feel to them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but we've been and still are the squeaky wheel on the ratty broken shopping cart that nobody uses anyway. Who cares about the squeaky wheel?

SkaraMinoc

I'm convinced that nothing can stop the best ball groups until there's enough players (40+) doing so much damage that it overwhelms their healing. The best ball groups won't die to other ball groups and they won't die to randoms with Rush of Agony, Negate, Plaguebreak, Vicious Death or any of the trash sets like Snake in the Stars. This just happened the other day where a ball group couldn't be killed for almost 2 hours and roamed AD and EP territory, taking keeps, scrolls, and killing everyone in their path. This was during primetime on PC NA Grey Host. The only thing that finally stopped them was 50+ EP on the top floor of Arrius. Half of them made it out of the keep but they couldn't get a camp up before getting zerged down.

SmellyUnlimited

So what makes a ball group composition so dangerous that it can’t be stopped? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve seen loads of ball groups but, from what I can tell, they’re centered around bombers and negate tanks? Everyone casting HoTs, with just a couple dedicated healers.

Ball groups seem like a natural progression in competitive PvP to me. What was once a ragtag band of players from all skill levels and classes eventually found a “meta” that leveraged the deadliest sets with the deadliest composition. Isn’t that essentially what would be seen as progress in the PvP side of the game? Pushing boundaries for increased reward and domination. I don’t know exactly what ZoS can do to combat it, other than completely upend HoTs to not stack anymore and lower damage mitigation across the board with Battle Spirit. But maube it’s necessary?

SkaraMinoc

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

So what makes a ball group composition so dangerous that it can’t be stopped? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve seen loads of ball groups but, from what I can tell, they’re centered around bombers and negate tanks? Everyone casting HoTs, with just a couple dedicated healers.

Ball groups seem like a natural progression in competitive PvP to me. What was once a ragtag band of players from all skill levels and classes eventually found a “meta” that leveraged the deadliest sets with the deadliest composition. Isn’t that essentially what would be seen as progress in the PvP side of the game? Pushing boundaries for increased reward and domination. I don’t know exactly what ZoS can do to combat it, other than completely upend HoTs to not stack anymore and lower damage mitigation across the board with Battle Spirit. But maube it’s necessary?

I've personally measured ball groups having somewhere between 30-50k healing per second when healers are actively burst healing on top of all the HoTs already applied across the group.

Rush of Agony into AoE fear/streak is completely busted. Both fear and streak have something like 0.8s delay before you actually break free. This is more than enough time to cast Dawnbreaker or have your ball buddies walk up and press Cyclone and Use Synergy on top of multiple pre-casted Destro ults and Proxy Detonations.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

So what makes a ball group composition so dangerous that it can’t be stopped? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve seen loads of ball groups but, from what I can tell, they’re centered around bombers and negate tanks? Everyone casting HoTs, with just a couple dedicated healers.

Ball groups seem like a natural progression in competitive PvP to me. What was once a ragtag band of players from all skill levels and classes eventually found a “meta” that leveraged the deadliest sets with the deadliest composition. Isn’t that essentially what would be seen as progress in the PvP side of the game? Pushing boundaries for increased reward and domination. I don’t know exactly what ZoS can do to combat it, other than completely upend HoTs to not stack anymore and lower damage mitigation across the board with Battle Spirit. But maube it’s necessary?

Essentially its a combination of a lot of over tuned sets (mostly group sets), lack of stat balance due to hybridization and the main reason is the lack of general pvp population combined with lack of skill/knowledge which makes groups good. (stacking HoT's also plays a role but not as much as people complain about imo)

Generally if a group finds itself up against a reasonable size of player population + 4-5 players who know how to actually hurt groups they don't really last long. Unfortunately the players who know how to actually kill groups in those scenarios are normally the ones playing in the groups.

Tiphis

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

So what makes a ball group composition so dangerous that it can’t be stopped? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve seen loads of ball groups but, from what I can tell, they’re centered around bombers and negate tanks? Everyone casting HoTs, with just a couple dedicated healers.

Ball groups seem like a natural progression in competitive PvP to me. What was once a ragtag band of players from all skill levels and classes eventually found a “meta” that leveraged the deadliest sets with the deadliest composition. Isn’t that essentially what would be seen as progress in the PvP side of the game? Pushing boundaries for increased reward and domination. I don’t know exactly what ZoS can do to combat it, other than completely upend HoTs to not stack anymore and lower damage mitigation across the board with Battle Spirit. But maube it’s necessary?

Essentially its a combination of a lot of over tuned sets (mostly group sets), lack of stat balance due to hybridization and the main reason is the lack of general pvp population combined with lack of skill/knowledge which makes groups good. (stacking HoT's also plays a role but not as much as people complain about imo)

Generally if a group finds itself up against a reasonable size of player population + 4-5 players who know how to actually hurt groups they don't really last long. Unfortunately the players who know how to actually kill groups in those scenarios are normally the ones playing in the groups.

Well to be fair most of those people who do have the skill/knowledge simply aren't built for it, and/or are running around solo and so there's no point. Building to counter a ball group is pointless in every other situation and so most small scalers don't bother. It would be like if they got rid of detect pots and detect on cam hunter/ inner light; is cloak too op then? Well of course not, just run sentry. Get rid of the stacking increasing cost on streak because people can just slot a gap closer. Bring back the old magsorc shields because people can just run shield-breaker or oblivion damage. Get rid of break free because people can use immovable pots or use unstoppable. Make siege not able to be purged because you can just not stand in the red circle.

The commonality of the counter does have an effect on the power balance. And most counters to ball groups simply aren't common. My sorc uses negate but that's all he can provide to counter a ball group (unless earthgore soaks it or it's counter-negated), my templar uses practiced incantation (unless the burst damage is enough to simply kill enough outright), my dk doesn't even bother showing up, my nb bomber is caught out 9/10 times because there are plenty of pugs who zerg surf with the ball groups.

Heals_With_Orbs

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

So what makes a ball group composition so dangerous that it can’t be stopped? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve seen loads of ball groups but, from what I can tell, they’re centered around bombers and negate tanks? Everyone casting HoTs, with just a couple dedicated healers.

Ball groups seem like a natural progression in competitive PvP to me. What was once a ragtag band of players from all skill levels and classes eventually found a “meta” that leveraged the deadliest sets with the deadliest composition. Isn’t that essentially what would be seen as progress in the PvP side of the game? Pushing boundaries for increased reward and domination. I don’t know exactly what ZoS can do to combat it, other than completely upend HoTs to not stack anymore and lower damage mitigation across the board with Battle Spirit. But maube it’s necessary?

They have too much healing stacked. Why does any player need 12 instances of vigor and rapid regen?
ZOS did remove cross stack healing before but then readded it, and why would they do that?

So a person can have mulitple healing stack but NOT multiple instances of damage like snake in the stars. Sets that looked promising not only have a cooldown, but are also limited to 1 person, so 5 people cant apply Snake in the stars.

Its not just the composition that makes them hard to counter, its the game performance that severely drops, ball groups can handle lag because they have way too much healing, but other groups and players cant. Not only that, but some of these groups use lag switches etc to exploit this fact. I wont say whom.

Its just combo, of broken sets, over powered mythic items, unbalanced classes like wardens, dks and nbs, lag and game performance

I've seen plenty of times when 12 guys in a ball group couldnt be taken down by 50 odd players. They were pounded by siege equipment and it just bounced off them. Utter nonsense.

JerBearESO

Mutli targeted healing/shielding should be devided amongst all targets when battle spirit is active, as a new standard. PvP solved.

10k over 10 seconds (just an example) becomes 5k over 10 seconds per target for 2 targets, and 3.3k per for 3 targets, 2.5k for 4. You get it....

Just solved. Literally entire PvP solved hahahaha