PvP, broken sets, and the people crutching on them.

RetPing

Just watched a wonderfull example of what ESO PvP has become.
A BG running rounds on a keep spamming shields with many people chasing. People that had zero probability to kill them.
Once in a while they turn around, a broken set that do the work pulling all enemies, some ultimate dumping. Lots of dead.

Rinse and repeat for almost an hour.
Such great and interesting PvP.

I would love to have some comment from ESO Combat Team. Is that the PVP you have envisioned for the game? Are you proud of your work?

Note: those are genuine questions, there is absolutely no intention of bashing because I am perfectly aware that different people may like different hings.
Note 2: How I know they where spamming shields? Just for fun I tried hitting them several time from ranged and all I have seen in my Combat Text addon were the name of shields skills instead of the name of my skill.

Regards.

Theignson

Its been like this for a long time now. I think arcanist shields made the ball group invulnerability even worse.

All they do is run around building ulti, then they 12v3 or 4 by the tired old:

"Pull--stun/fear--Ulti bomb" .

jerj6925

Theignson wrote: »

Its been like this for a long time now. I think arcanist shields made the ball group invulnerability even worse.

All they do is run around building ulti, then they 12v3 or 4 by the tired old:

"Pull--stun/fear--Ulti bomb" .

No arcanist shield didn't make it worse, wardens and dragon knights are laps ahead of any other class for this. Dark convergence, who ever created that set should have lost their job. That armor set breaks the game, I continue to get pulled through walls, doors, I know I am out of rage but some how still get pulled in. This set just needs to be removed.

CameraBeardThePirate

jerj6925 wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Its been like this for a long time now. I think arcanist shields made the ball group invulnerability even worse.

All they do is run around building ulti, then they 12v3 or 4 by the tired old:

"Pull--stun/fear--Ulti bomb" .

No arcanist shield didn't make it worse, wardens and dragon knights are laps ahead of any other class for this. Dark convergence, who ever created that set should have lost their job. That armor set breaks the game, I continue to get pulled through walls, doors, I know I am out of rage but some how still get pulled in. This set just needs to be removed.

Arcanist Bubble and Chakrams absolutely made ball groups worse lol.

React

jerj6925 wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Its been like this for a long time now. I think arcanist shields made the ball group invulnerability even worse.

All they do is run around building ulti, then they 12v3 or 4 by the tired old:

"Pull--stun/fear--Ulti bomb" .

No arcanist shield didn't make it worse, wardens and dragon knights are laps ahead of any other class for this. Dark convergence, who ever created that set should have lost their job. That armor set breaks the game, I continue to get pulled through walls, doors, I know I am out of rage but some how still get pulled in. This set just needs to be removed.

Having damage shields up at all times effectively takes the health of every player up to 50-65k, instead of the actual 40k ish they have. Good luck killing a group of players getting 10-15k healing per second at any given moment and 60k+ effective hp.

Aerenthir

Yeah the state of PvP is beyond tragic right now. I just removed my Subscription as well. If you're into PvP, game doesn't deserve any of your time or money.

Whole meta right now is Maarselok, Vateshran, Masters Dual Wield or you end up getting pulled by a ball group with Rush of Agony. Absolute joke.

Jsmalls

No-Cp, No proc PvP exists.....

It feels a lot like ESO PvP did 5-7 years ago...

Highly recommend giving it a shot. It's usually active Thursday - Saturday 8 p.m. Eastern.

It runs super smooth, there are no cheese sets, tankiness is limited due to set options.

It's a really fun version of the game...

Wish more people would give it a chance.

BardInSolitude

Ball groups have existed for years. I've seen old videos of ball groups which still exist today from a time before mass pull sets and they were just as devastating, so pull sets have never been a prerequisite for massive farms. This is especially true inside keeps, because most ball groups already know how to use choke points to their advantage. In fact, sometimes these pull sets are unresponsive and it becomes easier to fear your enemies along your path.

Now, was that playstyle intended by ZOS? I think so, but they possibly didn't anticipate how powerful it would be, but if you put two and two together the only answer is a ball group. I mean, a ball group is basically a combination of 3 types of builds which are already extremely common in the game: solo bombers, trial healers and buff tanks.

Solo bombers exist because Proxy exists, and it's clear what ZOS intended when they added that skill in the game: being able to kill multiple enemies with one person. Trial healers and buff tanks exist because trial groups need healing and buffs and can't afford to have their own DDs wasting time healing and buffing themselves. The existence of sets and AoE abilities that affect 6/12 people proves that these types of builds were completely intended, too.

Now, effectively a ball group is a bunch of solo bombers supported by a group of buff tanks and healers. The primary difference between trial groups and ball groups is that the damage emphasis is on burst and not sustain. Regardless, it seems pretty rational to go down that route in PvP if it already works like that in high end PvE. It's simple division of labor, which you do more efficiently the more players you have in your group.

I perfectly understand it can be frustrating to go up against a ball group; chances are the group you were complaining about was mine, since we had a really good farm at Farragut (BR) for about 30-40 minutes that same night you posted (and another ball group was farming that same keep right before us, which would have made it seem like an hour). Still, there have been plenty of times where we fumbled and wiped early on. Unless you're going up against the absolute legends of the game, there are always ways to beat us, so...

... get creative! We spend a lot of time analysing logs and videos, optimising builds, etc; none of this is easy, so if you expect to beat us you're going to have to put some serious work, too.

Moothos

I remember one day there was a DC ball group at Kingscrest, they owned it. My usual group of probably about 4 or 5 people shot a hole in the wall from the lumbermill and when they came out to kill us we just walked away before they even made it up the stairs. They all went back down to repair the breach together. So just for laughs we shot the breach again to stop the repair. They all came back up together to kill us but once again we just walked away before they even made it up the stairs. Rinse and repeat until they get frustrated and leave. They didn't kill anybody. So the point is, they like to stick together like glue. Just ignore them and disperse if you see them and they'll likely be too annoyed to follow individuals around 1 at a time. Don't feed them. If you're not into taking a similar trial-group approach to pvp and just want to play casually, you should probably stay away or get farmed. I wish more people understood this, but for some reason people like throwing themselves into a meat grinder.

RetPing

BardInSolitude wrote: »

... get creative! We spend a lot of time analysing logs and videos, optimising builds, etc; none of this is easy, so if you expect to beat us you're going to have to put some serious work, too.

In all honesty I have zero interest in spending my time analyzing video to fight a bunch of people that crutch on the most broken mechanincs/sets of the game to do their toxic gameplay.
I'm really not interested in this kind of PvP.

BardInSolitude

I will reiterate that ball groups have always farmed entire zergs inside keeps and by cleverly maneuvering around natural chokepoints in the open field prior to the introduction of pull sets, simply by fearing and bombing. You have no excuse; it's all a natural consequence of ball groups honing their craft for hours every week, over a span of years. And, hey, not all ball groups were made equal, either.

React

BardInSolitude wrote: »

I will reiterate that ball groups have always farmed entire zergs inside keeps and by cleverly maneuvering around natural chokepoints in the open field prior to the introduction of pull sets, simply by fearing and bombing. You have no excuse; it's all a natural consequence of ball groups honing their craft for hours every week, over a span of years. And, hey, not all ball groups were made equal, either.

Let's not pretend that this is exclusively a result of "ball groups honing their craft". I'm willing to accept that groups have gotten marginally better over time, but the tools available today are drastically stronger compared to what existed previously.

Pull sets removed the need to utilize posisitioning and chokes to do "hits" on groups of players.

Snow treaders remove the need for anybody to utilize snare immunities, AND since nobody can sprint they're spending more time spamming defensive abilities - the drawback of snow treaders becoming more of a buff than a nerf in a ball group setting.

Max HP is extremely inflated now with max stats no longer being valuable. Typically every member in the groups I encounter has over 40k HP, with some surpassing 50k HP.

To compound the problem with high HP, damage shields are now far more prevalent. While barrier has always existed, we now have chakrams and the arcanist bubble ults being spammed - meaning that most of those 40k-50k hp players have 60-80k EHP (effective HP).

Finally the straw that really breaks the camel's back, HOT stacking. Every member of the group is receiving 10k HPS at any given moment in time from echoing vigor alone. Before even considering any of the other myriad of HOTs and burst heals present.

Now me personally? I'm not as concerned about the sets as I am about the HOT stacking. Echoing Vigor in a ball group setting is undeniably overtuned and desperately needs to be limited. You shouldn't be able to have more than 2 stacks of any specific HOT on you at once - so 2 echoing + 2 radiating + 2 polar would be okay, but not 3+ echoing. At least this would require groups to think a little more about how they distribute hots across the group, and which classes they take.

Pull sets never should have entered the game, but they're here and they aren't going anywhere. My only qualm at this point is that ROA doesn't grant CC immunity on the pull. It should, or it should apply an actual stun that can be broken free of.

BardInSolitude

All your points are moot because the base truth is that organised groups that take advantage of division of labor to minmax performance will always outperform disorganised individuals.

You can keep theorycrafting under imaginary circumstances or you can make the most of what you have. Ball groups didn't get any better, they were always that devastating, and that's because they always chased the meta.

React

BardInSolitude wrote: »

All your points are moot because the base truth is that organised groups that take advantage of division of labor to minmax performance will always outperform disorganised individuals.

You can keep theorycrafting under imaginary circumstances or you can make the most of what you have. Ball groups didn't get any better, they were always that devastating, and that's because they always chased the meta.

You're deflecting. Ball groups were nowhere near as effective as this in the past. I can agree with "organization wins over disorganization", but the fact is that the current power level of ball groups isn't due to an extreme increase in their ability to organize - its primarily due to the points I listed above simplyfying the more difficult parts of large scale organized play. It's easier than it ever has been to be an effective 12 man, because the current tools utilized by them are drastically overperforming across multiple categories

BardInSolitude

HoT stacking has always been in the game and it's the reason we stay alive. Inside keeps we don't need stacking sets - as I said they don't even work half the time, especially RoA. Explain to me what aspect of our game is a recent development?! Proxy, Sub, HoTs, Barrier, Rapids?? These are all age old skills and sufficient to farm a zerg inside a keep.

What pull sets did was change open field combat tactics, but those same sets are also highly disruptive of ball group movement. Overall ball group effectiveness hasn't really changed.

Kartalin

Pull sets definitely lowered the bar for entry though. Any group can stack damage in one place if the pull is there and they have a decent understanding of timing and mechanics. What creates different tiers of ball groups is how consistently they can perform well timed bombs and keep everyone alive and moving.

Even non-grouped players are wearing pull sets to help disrupt organized groups. It actually hurts ball groups to be around other players using stuns and pulls because it throws off our timing and our ability to pull and stun opponents at the correct time.

It used to be we would have to kite opponents some distance to get them to line up and stack in a choke point to get an accurate/effective bomb off, so I'm not disagreeing that pull sets have decidedly changed the landscape of pvp.

I actually wouldn't mind if hot stacking was limited in a way, it can get really boring as a healer just spamming certain skills a number of times every 10 or 15 seconds. I think we would still find ways to be successful and work around it but at the same time I don't know that we would have the same level of success versus the rank and file. GvGs with other ball groups will still be on equal footing and still equally enjoyable for us.

React

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Explain to me what aspect of our game is a recent development?! Proxy, Sub, HoTs, Barrier, Rapids??

I did explain - you said that my point was moot.

Pull sets trivialize positioning and utilization of terrain.

Snow treaders increase defensive APM by removing sprint (which prevents ability casts) and removing snare immunities.

Max HP being compounded by chakram and gibberish shelter shields creates an astronomically large cushion for mistakes - effectively requiring bursts to be in the range of 60-80k damage in one single GCD to kill any member of your group.

Echoing vigor in particular when it comes to hot stacking. Compare echoing to any other hot. It was recently buffed to a 15s duration. It is a very large aoe that hits 6 people per cast. It has no prerequisites to slot, such as class/weapon restrictions, so it fits on every member of your group. It is a sticky HOT, so unlike springs/ritual, it requires no positioning to take full advantage of.

Again, if echoing were limited to 2 stacks per player, your group would need to utilize 2 echoing, 2 radiating, 2 springs, 2 rituals, etc to achieve the same healing. Your healing would be justifiable in this case - because those other skills require posistioning, weapon and class sacrifices, or have targeting restrictions much more strict than echoing vigor.

BardInSolitude wrote: »

What pull sets did was change open field combat tactics, but those same sets are also highly disruptive of ball group movement. Overall ball group effectiveness hasn't really changed.

So you don't pull inside of keeps, eh? Hard to believe. It's a flat out lie to say that pulls don't trivialize every outnumbered combat encounter when it comes to posistioning and timing your hits.

The effectiveness has changed. Ball groups are signifcantly stronger than before, with less effort and skill required of their members than in the past.

BardInSolitude

Right, I'm lying. Whatever helps confirm your bias.

React

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Right, I'm lying. Whatever helps confirm your bias.

Once again, you ignore the entire response. It's interesting that you'd call me bias, but as a ball group player yourself, you're here defending things that are blatantly overpowered without giving any reasonable argument as to why they aren't.

Since you're hyperfocusing on my last point, which was;

React wrote: »

So you don't pull inside of keeps, eh? Hard to believe. It's a flat out lie to say that pulls don't trivialize every outnumbered combat encounter when it comes to posistioning and timing your hits.

tell me, do you disagree that pull sets trivialize outnumbered combat encounters in the context of posistioning and timing your hits? If you were to draw a comparison between how those scenarios play out now vs how they did 3-4 years ago, would you say the current version is equal in effectiveness and complexity?

BardInSolitude

I agree with Kartalin that these sets lower the barrier of entry, but good ball groups don't actually need them when chokes are plentiful. My group's rather average but even we end up finding it easier to fear rather than pull in a lot of cases, so imagine what this means for a better group.

Vigor got buffed, NB ulti also got buffed, but also siege got buffed and CCs have been worse than ever. Treaders are almost a necessity to have any sort of fluid movement but they're still not a panacea. Most of the DCs and RoAs are worn by small scalers and soloers who ride the zerg to wipe other zergs or seek to disrupt ball groups. All valid playstyles.

The point is, farming is no easier for those who already knew how to do it, it's just different. That's why complaints about ball groups have existed for as long as I've been on the forums (about 5 years). I've faced ball groups that seemed invincible and others that we would easily burst down. Player skill and group coordination are still the most important factor.

TechMaybeHic

I'd say probably 95% of ball groups today would have not worked out back when a couple could do it.

Joy_Division

React wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

I will reiterate that ball groups have always farmed entire zergs inside keeps and by cleverly maneuvering around natural chokepoints in the open field prior to the introduction of pull sets, simply by fearing and bombing. You have no excuse; it's all a natural consequence of ball groups honing their craft for hours every week, over a span of years. And, hey, not all ball groups were made equal, either.

Let's not pretend that this is exclusively a result of "ball groups honing their craft". I'm willing to accept that groups have gotten marginally better over time, but the tools available today are drastically stronger compared to what existed previously.

Pull sets removed the need to utilize posisitioning and chokes to do "hits" on groups of players.

Snow treaders remove the need for anybody to utilize snare immunities, AND since nobody can sprint they're spending more time spamming defensive abilities - the drawback of snow treaders becoming more of a buff than a nerf in a ball group setting.

Max HP is extremely inflated now with max stats no longer being valuable. Typically every member in the groups I encounter has over 40k HP, with some surpassing 50k HP.

To compound the problem with high HP, damage shields are now far more prevalent. While barrier has always existed, we now have chakrams and the arcanist bubble ults being spammed - meaning that most of those 40k-50k hp players have 60-80k EHP (effective HP).

Finally the straw that really breaks the camel's back, HOT stacking. Every member of the group is receiving 10k HPS at any given moment in time from echoing vigor alone. Before even considering any of the other myriad of HOTs and burst heals present.

Now me personally? I'm not as concerned about the sets as I am about the HOT stacking. Echoing Vigor in a ball group setting is undeniably overtuned and desperately needs to be limited. You shouldn't be able to have more than 2 stacks of any specific HOT on you at once - so 2 echoing + 2 radiating + 2 polar would be okay, but not 3+ echoing. At least this would require groups to think a little more about how they distribute hots across the group, and which classes they take.

Pull sets never should have entered the game, but they're here and they aren't going anywhere. My only qualm at this point is that ROA doesn't grant CC immunity on the pull. It should, or it should apply an actual stun that can be broken free of.

It was easier to play in a ball group 4-5 years ago then it is now. 24 people, purge bots, everyone running around with 22K health made perfect VD fodder, the relative power of Eye of the Flame, Healing Springs spam, it absolutely was easier to maintain the sort of organized group that people complain about on these forums. This was done without pull sets, without mythics, without 40K health builds, without Arcanists (or even Wardens).

Today to be any good, you can have at most 3, maybe 4, carrys/inexperienced/occasional fills until the dynamics of the group fall apart.

But at the end of the day, the people convinced that ball groups are only powerful because they are crutching on some broken mechanic and it's just a matter of ZOS making a change/nerf/or removing said offending mechanic are missing the point and will be forever disappointed. Today people are really convinced that heal stacking is the source of why ball groups are unkillable. I won't deny it;s strong and I actually agree it should be dropped. We'll be fine. We never used to rely on HoT stacking. There wasn;t any need to. 24 people meant barriers were a plenty, purgers removed a lot of that ticking damage we were taking, and the sheer power of so much PBAoE from so many damage dealers meant many of the enemies died before threatening our health bars. In those days people complained about purge about as much as they do now about heal stacking. They were right, it was too strong. So it got nerfed. So we began emphasizing HoTs. When that gets nerfed, we'll move on to something else. There are always mechanics in the game that are strong/efficient/easy and when a core group of 8 to 9 people who are good at the game dedicate their builds to taking advantage of those efficient mechanics, that's what has made ball groups the subject of forum complaints since 2014. And Zos will constantly introduce them because they need to sell chapters and DLC

This might come as a surprise, but I have basically agreed with the vast majority of complaints people on these forums have raised about what they referred to as crutch mechanics. This goes all the way back to AoE Caps, which I couldn't stand. Pull sets ignoring CC immunity, having ten of the same HoT ticking, group members just spamming purge are silly because they either break the rules everyone plays by or are such that only a organized group can possibly use (and thus in effect allows them to play by different rules). I don't like that either and the more those are removed the more often the better groups will win when fighting each other. So all for it. My group already has theory-crafted what to do when HoT stacking gets nerfed and I know my ESO history; this will just like the numerous changes ZOS has made to these busted mechanics and things won;t change: people on these forums will still complain about ball groups having too much power. If anything I don;t think your own suggestion goes far enough: allowing two stacking HoTs of each type would probably just result in some minor changes of some people's bars.

Another part of the problem is that neither ZOS nor the people who don;t partake in organized groups fully understand what makes them tick. You state here that Snow Treaders are a crucial component, but I haven't worn them in a fight against another guild in years. In our Discord channel there are thousands of posts arguing over what would be the best comp and hours upon hours upon hours are dedicated to testing things on the PTS. Whatever changes ZOS makes, the better groups will manage it just fine.

Sluggy

React wrote: »

jerj6925 wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Its been like this for a long time now. I think arcanist shields made the ball group invulnerability even worse.

All they do is run around building ulti, then they 12v3 or 4 by the tired old:

"Pull--stun/fear--Ulti bomb" .

No arcanist shield didn't make it worse, wardens and dragon knights are laps ahead of any other class for this. Dark convergence, who ever created that set should have lost their job. That armor set breaks the game, I continue to get pulled through walls, doors, I know I am out of rage but some how still get pulled in. This set just needs to be removed.

Having damage shields up at all times effectively takes the health of every player up to 50-65k, instead of the actual 40k ish they have. Good luck killing a group of players getting 10-15k healing per second at any given moment and 60k+ effective hp.

To put this in perspective, in the early days some of us figured out how to do this in PvE using DK tanks, Igneous Shields, and lots of HP like from Plague Doctor, and Equilibrium for infinite sustain. Once zos discovered that tanks were defending the whole party by spamming one skill they shut it all down pretty quickly. So, I'd say go find a way to break some trials using this and it'll all change real fast.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

People thinking groups got better is crazy lol.

Firstly 90% of the oldschool player base of actually decent players quit with all the lag that was in the game, maybe 10-20% came back when the servers were updated but a good portion of those have dropped out again seeing the state of the rest of the game. Campaigns have around a 52 player cap per faction now, Previously it was over 100. Previously groups used to look to fight outnumbered. Now its lucky if most groups are fighting more than 12-20 players Max at a time. Those types of fights used to be considered boring previously, I know at least for us we were always looking for 12-14 vs 37+ Additionally there were way more guilds that you could fight, There were times in the past where we'd be against 3x 24m groups as 12-16 players too.

As for the Changes ZOS made. They trivialised grouping to a huge extent.

Pull sets absolutely affect how easy GvPug is now Rushing Agony + Follow up CC is such a broken mechanic. The only reason it wasn't used when Rushing agony was implemented was because lag made it so that you couldn't gap close/pull reliably.

The main change which made groups stronger is the hybridization changes. Prior to that groups had to spam either mutagen or vigor (which ever they were spec'd into) the other wasn't worth the resources because if they were a magicka build vigor didn't heal for anything and if you went for stam then proxy was weak. Now all players have access to use any skill in the game with any build ofc its way more broken lol.

Every time some player comes back to the game to play in the groups i've been in recently their first comment is always 'Where are the fights / Where are the players?'. Cyro is a wasteland compared to even 3 years ago.

Edit: Also 24m back in the day weren't ball groups, they were the zergs actual ball groups used to hunt to make them spread out.

Oblivion_Protocol

HoT stacking absolutely makes ball groups more powerful and harder to kill. But the good groups don’t need it. If you get rid of it, they’ll find something else to do. These groups can pull in insane trial healers who can keep you alive through a nuclear explosion. I’ve run with a few ball groups, and one of them regularly operated without Echoing Vigor just to challenge themselves. Did people die? Yeah. Did we still farm the map? Absolutely!

Nerf away, but ball groups will adapt and remain an organized threat. You want to stop them? Get a group of your own and fight. Theorycraft a build to work in a group. Participate in large-scale PvP the way it’s meant to be played. Don’t get upset if you and three randoms can’t kill an organized, well-oiled 12-man machine. That’s not how war works.

Frankly, that shouldn’t be how it works. For all the folks saying groups should die more easily, there’s just as many or more people complaining and screaming for nerfs when they and their six friends can’t kill one player or actually die to that one player.

heng14rwb17_ESO

Can my 100k DPS PVE kill them ?

finehair

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Can my 100k DPS PVE kill them ?

nope, pve dps means nothing in pvp settings. your target actively heals, purges, breaks line of sight & damages you.
also you'd be pretty much dead within seconds if you come to pvp with pve gear.

moo_2021

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Can my 100k DPS PVE kill them ?

combo with ulti might if you can break shield and get into execute range instantly. not fighting alone of course.


pve bowmen are rather dangerous in BG when teamed up with melee pvp guys, and I always have to kill them first (if I get into gap closer range).

reazea

RetPing wrote: »

Just watched a wonderfull example of what ESO PvP has become.
A BG running rounds on a keep spamming shields with many people chasing. People that had zero probability to kill them.
Once in a while they turn around, a broken set that do the work pulling all enemies, some ultimate dumping. Lots of dead.

Rinse and repeat for almost an hour.
Such great and interesting PvP.

I would love to have some comment from ESO Combat Team. Is that the PVP you have envisioned for the game? Are you proud of your work?

Note: those are genuine questions, there is absolutely no intention of bashing because I am perfectly aware that different people may like different hings.
Note 2: How I know they where spamming shields? Just for fun I tried hitting them several time from ranged and all I have seen in my Combat Text addon were the name of shields skills instead of the name of my skill.

Regards.

Can't blame the people running the OP sets. Blame ZOS for creating them.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back and forth in addition to some off-topic posts from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding.

RetPing

reazea wrote: »

Can't blame the people running the OP sets. Blame ZOS for creating them.

I don't agree with you. I blame also people for cheesing their way, what fun there is in that?

I really don't understand what kind of fun or fulfillment you can have while crutching on those things.
Yeah, maybe one or two times can be fun but doing that thing over and over? Seems a really sad gameplay to me.