Solo/Small scale Bombing and Ball groups

TheAwesomeChimpanzee

For as long as I can remember, the PvP community has been complaining about Ball groups ruining PvP, specifically Cyrodiil PvP. But even with ZoS trying to implement mechanics to counter ball groups and straight up nerfing them at times, such as the changes to harmony, proximity detonation, plaguebreak, among many others, all they did was hurt solo and small scale players even more, by removing burst mechanics that excel at killing stacks of people such as the aforementioned ones all they do is hurt solo Bombers and Small scale bomb groups because now they basically have no chance of standing up to a ball group even if the group is bad or below average, by having 12 people and no ways of countering hard stacks like the version of proximity detonation we had years ago ball groups can run rampant in PvP with very little counter play.

I do not believe the play style should be eradicated but definitely should be counterable by more than 1 way, the only solution at the moment is azureblight stacking which puts a lot of pressure into these groups but it requires you to fully spec into a play style that does 1 thing and 1 thing only, kill ball groups. Outside of that it’s really hard to kill any half competent group due to how easy it is to hot stack in this game that even a bad group of 12 can’t be killed by a really good group of 4-5-6 players because of how lacking the game is atm on reliable anti stacking mechanics.

In my personal opinion, a good way of fixing this issue is to either bring back the old morph of proximity detonation, so that solo tether bombing ball groups is possible once again and that a small bomb squad has a chance of killing these groups again (obviously a good 12 man should have an advantage against a good smaller group, but this will hit harder for the non as good ball groups that are carried by the play style). And some people might say this will also buff ball groups even more but the reality is, they already have the damage to kill you so even more damage really won’t make a difference, but in that case another good solution is to change proximity detonation this way: buff the base value of the skill by a fairly big margin so that it’s basically a decent skill, nowadays it only hits harder with more than 10 people stacked compared to its previous iteration, and make that base value go down for each member the player has in group, like how rallying cry works. This will bring back small/medium scale vs ball groups back and solo bombing ball groups back by giving them a fighting chance, while still understanding that a coordinated 12 man should outperform smaller cooordinated groups if they play correctly.

RaidingTraiding

I totally agree. Before the proxy det change, and even more so the harmony change, bombing all but the best ball groups was completely doable. Our small group had success killing ball groups with even as little as 3 people. 2 bombers and 1 healer who would drop synergies like nova or standard, all you needed was good timing and a bit of coordination. Now with these nerfs burst damage is way down, and trying to have the same level of success as before is close to impossible. I don't think the issue is cross healing though, people were complaining about cross healing back then also, but the amount of burst that was possible negated any amount of cross healing groups had, cross heals won't save you from that amount of burst damage which was by far the best counter to cross healing.

I think the real issue are pull sets. Pull sets really dumbed down bombing, which made it very accessible for everyone to bomb with little effort, which I think is what pushed zos to nerf harmony and other things like necro and proxy det, instead of nerfing the real issue which were pulls. Now with burst damage nerfed, anyone can use pull sets, but not everyone has enough burst to make full use of them, which is why mostly ball groups use them. These sets have also enabled lower skill groups to have more success. Before ball groups would have to play smarter and know how to kite players to choke points, and now pull sets enable them to have choke points on demand, even in open fields. So as a result these lower skilled groups have become more competitive and harder to counter than they used to be.

So I agree, the best option would be to bring back old proxy det and harmony, in addition to nerfing pull sets (I would have them removed from the game if it were up to me). And I also think it's important that whatever changes are made, a coordinated 12 man group should still outperform a smaller equally skilled small group, but should still have a chance.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee

I did not think about the pull sets but you are right, Rushing Agony is in fact a set that makes stacking and bombing far easier specially since it combos into AOE CCs such as fear from Nightblade or even Dawnbreaker, definitely lowering the skill ceiling of group play, even if other pull sets like Dark Convergence exist I do not believe they are that bad since they are very easy to predict and simple to block unlike Rushing Agony that you can only really see coming if you see the group pushing.

On another note, and I'm not trying to encourage the usage of this whatsoever, but it is undeniable that many people have been exploiting Tarnished Nightmare these past few weeks, unlike other instances where there have been bugged sets where people stay away due to the fear of getting banned this exploit has clearly seen a lot of use, I have died to it in multiple occasions and got punished for being stacked with groups of people. It is clear to me that a large portion of the Cyrodiil player base enjoys these mechanics, ballgroups are pretty much incapable of farming keeps from what i have seen on streams because of it which means for the first time since proxy det and harmony where removed there are ways of consistently killing ballgroups in Cyrodiil and clearly people are fine with risking account suspensions to enjoy mechanics like these again. I don't think it is ok to exploit the set that isn't working as intended but even from the forums posts where the topic is touched people think there should be more mechanics like it in the game, which is scaling AOE burst, this set is doing too much damage however but introductions of sets or abilities that scale with players hit so that they deal high amounts of burst damage in an area but no the extreme values that I've seen the exploit achieve however it is done, would clearly be welcoming additions by many as long as they are balanced and fair, unlike proximity detonation that is currently unfair to the user due to its ridiculously low base damage, and on the opposite end Tarnished Nigtmare that is unfair to the victim due to being bugged, but something in between.

I really hope the devs realize how necessary scaling burst AOE is for the future well bieng of Cyrodiil.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

I did not think about the pull sets but you are right, Rushing Agony is in fact a set that makes stacking and bombing far easier specially since it combos into AOE CCs such as fear from Nightblade or even Dawnbreaker, definitely lowering the skill ceiling of group play, even if other pull sets like Dark Convergence exist I do not believe they are that bad since they are very easy to predict and simple to block unlike Rushing Agony that you can only really see coming if you see the group pushing.

On another note, and I'm not trying to encourage the usage of this whatsoever, but it is undeniable that many people have been exploiting Tarnished Nightmare these past few weeks, unlike other instances where there have been bugged sets where people stay away due to the fear of getting banned this exploit has clearly seen a lot of use, I have died to it in multiple occasions and got punished for being stacked with groups of people. It is clear to me that a large portion of the Cyrodiil player base enjoys these mechanics, ballgroups are pretty much incapable of farming keeps from what i have seen on streams because of it which means for the first time since proxy det and harmony where removed there are ways of consistently killing ballgroups in Cyrodiil and clearly people are fine with risking account suspensions to enjoy mechanics like these again. I don't think it is ok to exploit the set that isn't working as intended but even from the forums posts where the topic is touched people think there should be more mechanics like it in the game, which is scaling AOE burst, this set is doing too much damage however but introductions of sets or abilities that scale with players hit so that they deal high amounts of burst damage in an area but no the extreme values that I've seen the exploit achieve however it is done, would clearly be welcoming additions by many as long as they are balanced and fair, unlike proximity detonation that is currently unfair to the user due to its ridiculously low base damage, and on the opposite end Tarnished Nigtmare that is unfair to the victim due to being bugged, but something in between.

I really hope the devs realize how necessary scaling burst AOE is for the future well bieng of Cyrodiil.

The issue is not damage currently, increasing aoe burst will just make large groups stronger as you will be able to desync your burst to have a longer pressure window.

The problem is the strength of sticky HoT's and on demand burst healing. If you think back to how groups used to heal prior to the changes to healing springs it relied on precasting springs in a path for your group to follow, and when on a static point you would layer 3 springs down which provided very good group healing. This however was counterable by negating the location thus removing the majority of the groups healing for a considerable amount of time whilst they moved out and re-layered springs. This meant that smaller groups could deny healing of larger groups with good outplays (moving the larger group into an area where they aren't able to heal as much / preventing their healers from casting for some time via stuns and negate / LoS denial was actually impactful.

Now players have HoT's constantly rolling on them so even if a player cannot cast for a short period of time the heals are still ticking away.
Combine this with very high burst healing levels due to the hybridization and spell/weapon dmg changes this is why you have the situation we are in now where numbers is basically the main factor in deciding fights within a greater range of skill levels.

Sure a small group who is more skilled will still generally beat a larger group because their timing and burst damage will be enough considering the worse reaction times / positioning of the lesser skilled group but if you take 2 relatively equal skilled groups the one with more players will now win around 80% of the time without question.

Heals_With_Orbs

Does anyone know what the actual reluctance is on ZOS behalf to do something about these groups?

Something isnt right, are they afraid to alienate the ball group community?

I saw something horrendous the other night, where both Daggerfall Covenant and Aldmeri Dominiion both appeared in an Ebonhart Pact keep inner and both sieged and clearly helping each other and theres nothing can be done about that.

Its not PVP. If players are allowed to have 12 instances of vigor, then allow there to be a counter where they can have 12 instances of snake in the stars on them instead of that useless 1 instance and 4 second cooldown and remove this nonsense.

Ive nothing against organised groups at all and they should have an advantage but not to this level

They are just taking advantage of a bad game design and its not PVP.

Turtle_Bot

- Revert the changes made to ground based HoTs and sticky HoTs. This would make ground based HoTs the best option for healing over time and group sticky HoTs would be supplemental to this, providing smaller healing over time to allow the group to move out of the ground based HoTs if that area got negated or if there's enough siege fire in that area.
- Probably have to do something about barrier stacking with Arc shields (well shield stacking in general), but shield stacking has always been an issue in this game (this was the real issue with magsorcs in the early years of ESO).

By forcing ball groups to switch back to ground based HoTs for their passive defenses, this introduces actual counter play to their passive defensive capabilities in the form of area denial via negate and siege fire. With the idea being that they are forced to stand inside those ground based HoTs to potentially out-heal the incoming pressure for an extended duration or if a negate or enough siege fire is laid down, they would be forced to move out of that area and reset those same HoTs in another area, which in turn means they're not freely preparing another burst for their next turn and burn knowing they are completely safe for the next 10 seconds regardless of incoming siege fire or negates thanks to the stacked sticky HoTs that are constantly ticking and travelling with them.

It introduces real skill in being able to stay alive as a group with having enough mobility to move around the area denial options yet staying close enough and active enough to keep their passive defenses (ground based HoTs) going at all times and gives other playstyles a proper way to fight back (or at least slow down the ball groups).

Of course increasing the pop caps back to some semblance of actual "faction war" size needs to be done as well, but this is it's own issue that needs addressing and could have it's own entire thread.

RaidingTraiding

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

I did not think about the pull sets but you are right, Rushing Agony is in fact a set that makes stacking and bombing far easier specially since it combos into AOE CCs such as fear from Nightblade or even Dawnbreaker, definitely lowering the skill ceiling of group play, even if other pull sets like Dark Convergence exist I do not believe they are that bad since they are very easy to predict and simple to block unlike Rushing Agony that you can only really see coming if you see the group pushing.

On another note, and I'm not trying to encourage the usage of this whatsoever, but it is undeniable that many people have been exploiting Tarnished Nightmare these past few weeks, unlike other instances where there have been bugged sets where people stay away due to the fear of getting banned this exploit has clearly seen a lot of use, I have died to it in multiple occasions and got punished for being stacked with groups of people. It is clear to me that a large portion of the Cyrodiil player base enjoys these mechanics, ballgroups are pretty much incapable of farming keeps from what i have seen on streams because of it which means for the first time since proxy det and harmony where removed there are ways of consistently killing ballgroups in Cyrodiil and clearly people are fine with risking account suspensions to enjoy mechanics like these again. I don't think it is ok to exploit the set that isn't working as intended but even from the forums posts where the topic is touched people think there should be more mechanics like it in the game, which is scaling AOE burst, this set is doing too much damage however but introductions of sets or abilities that scale with players hit so that they deal high amounts of burst damage in an area but no the extreme values that I've seen the exploit achieve however it is done, would clearly be welcoming additions by many as long as they are balanced and fair, unlike proximity detonation that is currently unfair to the user due to its ridiculously low base damage, and on the opposite end Tarnished Nigtmare that is unfair to the victim due to being bugged, but something in between.

I really hope the devs realize how necessary scaling burst AOE is for the future well bieng of Cyrodiil.

Yeah Rush is definitely a big culprit since it doesn't apply cc immunity, meaning you can combine it with other things to get double pulls, so essentially you are yo-yoed and lose control of your character for a few seconds while being bursted down without counter play. DC is still strong, but you're right it's not as bad.

Tarnished nightmare is a great example of how high AOE bursts are a good counter to ball groups. Because the procs can reach up to 50k or more, it essentially can one shot a ball group player, most of which don't stack HP higher than 40-45k.That level of burst coupled with server desync makes it hard to react to. Pre harmony and proxy det nerf you could easily achieve that level of burst with a well coordinated combo in a small group, but it was often overlooked because it required good timing, positioning, coordination, and on top of that a good understanding of the game and its mechanics. It wasn't an easy one button answer like the Tarnished bug. Having scaling AOE mechanics like you mentioned will most likely only get used if it's brain dead easy and requires no team work to accomplish. When people ask for counters to ball groups, what they really want is that one button answer or a silver bullet nerf that will magically make them go away. When there are mechanics present to actually accomplish that, as mentioned before, they get overlooked. If it's not easy they're not interested. But again, I do think those mechanics are lacking currently, outside of exploiting a bug.

Also I don't think nerfing or changing healing mechanics is the best way to handle the problem like it's being mentioned here. It will help some and you can nerf hots all you want, but if a group is skilled, their burst heals will keep the group alive and groups will adapt to the change like they always do. This will nerf small groups as well and even ungrouped players, so any nerf should be done in a way which doesn't negatively impact other playstyles. Most groups sit around 40k hp per player, give or take. So you need to have that much aoe burst damage in a very small window to be able to kill them, otherwise they will heal through it, be it hots or burst heals. So when you take away burst damage like we have seen, then there really isn't a good way to kill groups like that.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee

I see a few people in the thread are making arguments mostly blaming cross healing, and while this is in fact one of the major reasons, as i have stated before, that many ball groups are “carried” by the play style due to how easy it is to cast a few HOTS and stack them specially when they are targeted on-player buffs, I believe for one that nerfing cross healing, if it gets nerfed hard it will upper the skill floor a lot for many groups due to siege. With purge being removed from the game it is basically impossible for a group to “stand in a place to outheal the pressure” from multiple oils and cold fire ballistas they’ll simply burn to death while being free targets for siege. I am biased against siege, I think it is a bad skill-less mechanic that already hits way harder than it should and reducing the healing on balls and making it so ”they have to stand in ground hots” change would not be viable and would kill a large portion of the community because it would mean that a bunch of uncoordinated pugs would be able to consistently kill a coordinated 12 man. If purge was still a useable mechanic then I believe it would be fine.

On the other hand, people have been asking for cross-healing nerfs for how long now? Nothing has been implemented to effectively counter this or have been any significant changes to kill the play style. And that is not something I tried tackling with this thread, I only wanted to add ways of skillful counterplay to ball groups with everything that I have mentioned, do you know the only way to counter cross healing? It is not pressure, it is burst. Burst is the only thing that can hit through 10-20k hps. And currently there is not enough of it to even kill groups that can’t cast a negate or hold block when they see an enemy bomb incoming.