How to counter imperial city gankers?

Necrotech_Master · October 2023

Vulkunne wrote: »

You should def have a certain amount of health for any PvP zone... I thought that was something everyone kind of knew, as many who PvP have almost like 'industry standards' that most of us adhere to. The thing is, I just cannot understand this argument regarding having x amount of health means that: a) you are relatively safe and b) you won't get attacked.

Its just not right. I'm sorry but I've been thru alot with IC over time, kind of taking a break now, but I've seen so many guys in there running macros, exploits and straight up cheating to the point where it doesn't really matter how much health you have. You're not safe. And if you try and test that you're gonna drop lol. Just like those DC in my story... they thought the same things as others on here and regardless someone took them down. For example, (even when having over 30k health) several times I've been one shot in Cyrodiil and IC by Heavy Attack builds, many more times I've been killed in 2 or 3 shots... at full health... with a Force Pulse attack. I even had several instances where I was one shot using a Forse Pulse that had several light attacks and class single target attacks... that all came over in one attack. I'm not kidding or making that up... I sat here and watched it happen. And that character had 35k health.

And so for me, especially what people have put me through on there, you can have whatever setup, however much health as u can have, but if you don't understand the situation and as I have said, also have a plan for how to deal with things you'll get out-played by someone smarter. Not necessarily stronger but smarter. All kinds of things go on in IC. Yes there are steps you can take to prepare but for many, many players out there running exploits and 'metas' it just doesn't matter. Your approach no matter how well intended is often confounded (many times by ZOS releasing bad sets and not really thinking things thru) and people who only care about winning, going in there not to fight or play the game as much as to win without putting forth any real thought or effort and besides that, you also have the inverse where they log out of the server as soon as they get attacked. Like right away as if they have a shortcut setup. Not even gonna try just leave. Its crazy and one reason I'm kind of feeling like I'm done with PvP... least for awhile.

Tread lightly in IC.

heavy attack builds are a different story, since they are kind bypassing battle spirit with the trifocus passive

though it is far weaker now than it used to be since the splash dmg only works on the final tick of the heavy attack

i would call it more of a loophole than exploit, because its an odd design circumstance

empower and most HA sets only apply their bonus against NPCs now
battle spirit reduces your dmg done to other players (but not npcs) by 50%
trifocus ignores battle spirit so it is not "double dipping" in the case your primary target is a player

so the loophole is that if the person is primary targeting an NPC, trifocus is bypassing battle spirit and applying the full dmg done to the NPC in a splash, including to other players

as far as i know they didnt fix that loophole, they just nerfed trifocus to only apply to the final tick of the heavy attack instead of all 3 ticks of a lightning staff

the lesson is to be careful if your in melee range of NPCs lol

at least the NPCs themselves cannot be walking bombs due to plaguebreak lol

Vulkunne · October 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

You should def have a certain amount of health for any PvP zone... I thought that was something everyone kind of knew, as many who PvP have almost like 'industry standards' that most of us adhere to. The thing is, I just cannot understand this argument regarding having x amount of health means that: a) you are relatively safe and b) you won't get attacked.

Its just not right. I'm sorry but I've been thru alot with IC over time, kind of taking a break now, but I've seen so many guys in there running macros, exploits and straight up cheating to the point where it doesn't really matter how much health you have. You're not safe. And if you try and test that you're gonna drop lol. Just like those DC in my story... they thought the same things as others on here and regardless someone took them down. For example, (even when having over 30k health) several times I've been one shot in Cyrodiil and IC by Heavy Attack builds, many more times I've been killed in 2 or 3 shots... at full health... with a Force Pulse attack. I even had several instances where I was one shot using a Forse Pulse that had several light attacks and class single target attacks... that all came over in one attack. I'm not kidding or making that up... I sat here and watched it happen. And that character had 35k health.

And so for me, especially what people have put me through on there, you can have whatever setup, however much health as u can have, but if you don't understand the situation and as I have said, also have a plan for how to deal with things you'll get out-played by someone smarter. Not necessarily stronger but smarter. All kinds of things go on in IC. Yes there are steps you can take to prepare but for many, many players out there running exploits and 'metas' it just doesn't matter. Your approach no matter how well intended is often confounded (many times by ZOS releasing bad sets and not really thinking things thru) and people who only care about winning, going in there not to fight or play the game as much as to win without putting forth any real thought or effort and besides that, you also have the inverse where they log out of the server as soon as they get attacked. Like right away as if they have a shortcut setup. Not even gonna try just leave. Its crazy and one reason I'm kind of feeling like I'm done with PvP... least for awhile.

Tread lightly in IC.

heavy attack builds are a different story, since they are kind bypassing battle spirit with the trifocus passive

though it is far weaker now than it used to be since the splash dmg only works on the final tick of the heavy attack

i would call it more of a loophole than exploit, because its an odd design circumstance
empower and most HA sets only apply their bonus against NPCs now

battle spirit reduces your dmg done to other players (but not npcs) by 50%

trifocus ignores battle spirit so it is not "double dipping" in the case your primary target is a player

so the loophole is that if the person is primary targeting an NPC, trifocus is bypassing battle spirit and applying the full dmg done to the NPC in a splash, including to other players

as far as i know they didnt fix that loophole, they just nerfed trifocus to only apply to the final tick of the heavy attack instead of all 3 ticks of a lightning staff

the lesson is to be careful if your in melee range of NPCs lol

at least the NPCs themselves cannot be walking bombs due to plaguebreak lol

Yeah hah. See this is why we can't have nice things.

SeaGtGruff · October 2023

Jierdanit wrote: »

They are ganking you because IC is a PvP zone and they want to actually do PvP.

This is just my personal opinion, of course-- but I feel like some gankers don't actually want to "do PvP."

Or to put it another way, they want to win, and want to make the fight as one-sided as possible so they don't lose.

But some gankers will run away from a fight if their intended victim doesn't immediately die when ganked, because they don't really want to engage in a PvP fight.

Some gankers will persist, because they do want to fight.

fred4 · October 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

They are ganking you because IC is a PvP zone and they want to actually do PvP.

This is just my personal opinion, of course-- but I feel like some gankers don't actually want to "do PvP."

Or to put it another way, they want to win, and want to make the fight as one-sided as possible so they don't lose.

But some gankers will run away from a fight if their intended victim doesn't immediately die when ganked, because they don't really want to engage in a PvP fight.

Some gankers will persist, because they do want to fight.

The perennial problem with NBs, if you want to call it that, is that cloaking makes extreme outlier builds possible without immediately dying when you set foot in PvP on such builds, because you are ... well ... cloaked. Such builds are IMO hard to straight up duel with. They tend to be very squishy, not least because some of them rely on artificially reducing their own health before they gank you, e.g. to activate vamp bonuses or sets like Titanborn. The people who have the skill to continue after a failed gank on such builds are few and far between.

My own NB builds are more middle of the road, but leaning on sustain, speed and cloak, not tankiness. Any build that uses mobility instead of tankiness for defense - this goes for sorcs as well - is by definition the build that ends up judging when a fight is going nowhere or when it's too dangerous. Those players will, then, seek to disengage, because that is what their character is made for. You don't stay in a fight you know you'll only draw or lose in the long run. As a ganker you also know your best chance was when you had the element of surprise. A failed gank tells you a lot within a few seconds.