I kinda hope it's more of a separate balance and maybe some graphic mods (if that helps lag anyway leave them alone if not they're pretty) than all new skills. I don't want limited dumbed down skill sets where everyone has the same build out of three options. I'm picturing something awful like the gw2 weapon system with no customization at all. There's no way they're going to make enough skills compared to what we already have for it to be anything other than more boring.

They should do a pvp only gear server it's the sets that op skills not the other way around. Pvp gear should be bis in pvp that only makes sense.

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Cast_El wrote: »

Reduce "free damage" from proc set by 50% in pvp, and we are good to go

Yeah not sure why they wanted proc sets to crit again.

What I don't understand is why they felt the need to nerf harmony and proxy det but buff proc sets. Honestly the one they they accomplished by doing that is making ball groups harder to kill. Now you lack the up front burst damage to kill those groups so it's harder for vd to work on them cause you can't get them low, but at the same time pugs will still die because they're getting hit with 20-30k vds, not to mention over 10k rush procs. At least harmony and proxy det were harder to do and required coordination and timing, rather than mostly free damage from procs.

Harmony was heavily abused by ballgroups and organized comps to effortlessly offer off-gcd nuke potential. It didn´t require any effort whatsoever and if you played on PC you´d just keybind your synergy button to the mousewheel and spam that whenever it was ready to use some synergies. It was a necessary change to nerf harmony if you ask me (personally would´ve gone with another route than ZOS did but it is what it is)

Reduce "free damage" from proc set by 50% in pvp, and we are good to go

To be fair, I find the usage of stat sets a much much bigger issue these days compared proc sets that offers a little bit of free damage. The are a few exceptions of damage procs that could use some adjustment, but with emphasis on FEW. A much bigger issue are the overabundance of stat-/and group buff sets (and utility sets like Rush of Agony) combined with scribing skills that offers a power creep that has completely broken the game from a balance PoV. If you want a more balanced PvP (and PvE to be honest), you ask ZOS to reduce the effectiveness of stat- and buff sets in the game.

I think you missed my point. Harmony was also used back then to kill ball groups and it wasn't as easy to pull off in a small group. Now instead of hitting 20-30k+ synergies you hit that amount with vd instead, plus pull sets perfectly group players up for you. Difference is if you're not a ball group you don't have enough damage currently to get vd to proc on a ball group, but ball groups still have the ability to nuke without synergies with high proc damage. And now ball groups heavily abuse pulls sets which is miles easier to use than synergies, no question about that. Ball groups will always have the ability to nuke, itd be nice if the ability to nuke ball groups wasnt taken away from non ball groups.

As someone who ran in a group, I can say we never worried about a pug, solo person, or evem a small scale group (on their own) killing us with harmony. It certainy would never happen now with 10K perma aoe shields up. Harmony was only dangerous from other ball groups becauss only they had enough conduits banners and graveyards to coordinate together. In short harmony, like everythung else in this game, disproportionately favored ball groups and made them easier to play. Except azureblight, which of course zos neefed

as someone who ran in both 2-6 man groups AND 12 man groups i can say you 100% could kill a ball group as a small group with harmony back then. Maybe the very best ball groups wouldn't die to it without help, but low to upper middle tier groups could die to it without outside help. With the right build and comp you could hit 20-30k crit gravity crushes vs groups, more vs pugs. along with other synergies, ults, and aoes this was enough aoe burst to kill ball groups. nova was the main heavy hitter followed by standard, graveyards, and ignites, and last damage orbs and conduits. few groups used it because it wasn't brain dead easy to coordinate with as a small group. As a ball group it was easier because you have so many synergies available and a lot more dds, so a lot of non ult synergies could be used for big damage hits. Again, like I said multiple times, it doesnt matter that it was powerful because ball groups will ALWAYS have the ability to nuke pugs. What makes it easier now to nuke pugs even with harmony gone is the fact that pugs get pulled in to your bomb meaning on average more pugs will be caught in a bomb. before you'd only hit those who are in the bomb radius and those who follow you into chokes. Doesn't matter that harmony is nerfed because in most cases now and in the past, it's easy to overdamage pugs. A lot of people don't understand this, all they saw was a big synergy number on their recap. Pugs now still die just as fast as back then, it's just the damage looks different on your recap, but it's still enough to erase your health bar instantly. Again I want to emphasize it's so much easier now because pulls bring in more people to your bomb and you can lock people in for longer if you mistimed your damage, which also makes it more forgiving for the group doing the bombing.

Because you only mentioned banners, conduits, and graveyards, that tells me whatever group you were in most likely heavily favored survivability over maximum damage output, which is fine. Only using those synergies in your comp was the "meta" for ball groups at the time. Again this is fine, it meant groups could last longer at the expense of some damage. Different groups have different comps and goals. If that's the case I could see why you would think smaller groups weren't a threat back then. Just those synergies you mentioned won't net you the highest damage. That's another reason why you didn't see many smaller groups bomb larger groups, most groups have an ego and are afraid to die so they build to have just enough damage while also trying to build as tanky as possible. even with harmony as broken as you say it was, building for a more damage oriented group meant you'd have to sacrifice survivability and it would force you to play smarter knowing you couldnt tank everything, that made that comp harder to play. Now with that damage nerfed you for sure can't take on a decent ball group on your own.

Yes, because we were "meta" the only harmonies that killed us were from another ball group that had an excessive amount of them (or small group + residual damage), which made that meta a little less irritating than the current RoA one. I get what you are saying that a group of 6 could wipe an average group and that did take actual coordination to pull off. Because so few were any good at it, didn't really have to worry. But a group of 12 laying 9+ synergies to saturate an area, it was a different story; it just required rebinding their synergy button to something convenient like the mouse wheel.

With the better groups, it's not so much ego that drives their desire to build tanky, it's that to be good and survive another group hitting you with so many Shackles, Graves, Conduits, etc., without having your healers rage quit, that meant investing in survival. There is usually a benchmark guild on a server - everyone somewhat honest knows who is the best . The number of healers, set choices, skills, health, overall amount of defense was always determined by how much damage they put on us and pretty much only that. The guilds that comped like this and are actually good typically only fear another ball group or just getting overwhelmed.

I don't think ZOS understands this (actually, I know they don;t because they have zero clue how organized groups play and comp). There was a time back in the olden days of yore when we did build almost exclusively for damage. I still remember my clever alchemist + Vicious Death DW sorc with no Vigor and no Resto bar, and how much fun it was to play back then. But ZOS began to add a lot of instant high damage PBoA instances (Coordinated Warden Shalks, harmony, dark convergence, RoA, etc) that made it impossible to survive another group's bomb with 25K health and not having 10 HoTs ticking on us. All of this stuff was added and since it became so easy, as you correctly point out, to put basically 50-60K damage in one bomb, adjustments were necessary. The mere existence of RoA basically mandates this. As much as I hate RoA, I sometimes wonder if it would even be possible to kill a good group without it.

In my opinion, this all or nothing, insta-kill bomb or nothing is everything that is wrong with group Vs. group PvP. It got stale years ago (which is why a lot of us went to the disaster that was New World). Once again ZOS is remaking PvP in their secret laboratory, not telling us anything or even asking us what might some good measures to ensure this new Vengeance campaign doesn't have the same flaws as cyrodiil. But that would require communication (so, what ever happened to that Reddit Ask us anything and promise for more communication after the embarrassing BG stream? Yeah, who was naïve to think anything fruitful would come from that?) and learning from history. Two things we have a poor track record from ZOS.

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Cast_El wrote: »

Reduce "free damage" from proc set by 50% in pvp, and we are good to go

Yeah not sure why they wanted proc sets to crit again.

What I don't understand is why they felt the need to nerf harmony and proxy det but buff proc sets. Honestly the one they they accomplished by doing that is making ball groups harder to kill. Now you lack the up front burst damage to kill those groups so it's harder for vd to work on them cause you can't get them low, but at the same time pugs will still die because they're getting hit with 20-30k vds, not to mention over 10k rush procs. At least harmony and proxy det were harder to do and required coordination and timing, rather than mostly free damage from procs.

Harmony was heavily abused by ballgroups and organized comps to effortlessly offer off-gcd nuke potential. It didn´t require any effort whatsoever and if you played on PC you´d just keybind your synergy button to the mousewheel and spam that whenever it was ready to use some synergies. It was a necessary change to nerf harmony if you ask me (personally would´ve gone with another route than ZOS did but it is what it is)

Reduce "free damage" from proc set by 50% in pvp, and we are good to go

To be fair, I find the usage of stat sets a much much bigger issue these days compared proc sets that offers a little bit of free damage. The are a few exceptions of damage procs that could use some adjustment, but with emphasis on FEW. A much bigger issue are the overabundance of stat-/and group buff sets (and utility sets like Rush of Agony) combined with scribing skills that offers a power creep that has completely broken the game from a balance PoV. If you want a more balanced PvP (and PvE to be honest), you ask ZOS to reduce the effectiveness of stat- and buff sets in the game.

I think you missed my point. Harmony was also used back then to kill ball groups and it wasn't as easy to pull off in a small group. Now instead of hitting 20-30k+ synergies you hit that amount with vd instead, plus pull sets perfectly group players up for you. Difference is if you're not a ball group you don't have enough damage currently to get vd to proc on a ball group, but ball groups still have the ability to nuke without synergies with high proc damage. And now ball groups heavily abuse pulls sets which is miles easier to use than synergies, no question about that. Ball groups will always have the ability to nuke, itd be nice if the ability to nuke ball groups wasnt taken away from non ball groups.

As someone who ran in a group, I can say we never worried about a pug, solo person, or evem a small scale group (on their own) killing us with harmony. It certainy would never happen now with 10K perma aoe shields up. Harmony was only dangerous from other ball groups becauss only they had enough conduits banners and graveyards to coordinate together. In short harmony, like everythung else in this game, disproportionately favored ball groups and made them easier to play. Except azureblight, which of course zos neefed

as someone who ran in both 2-6 man groups AND 12 man groups i can say you 100% could kill a ball group as a small group with harmony back then. Maybe the very best ball groups wouldn't die to it without help, but low to upper middle tier groups could die to it without outside help. With the right build and comp you could hit 20-30k crit gravity crushes vs groups, more vs pugs. along with other synergies, ults, and aoes this was enough aoe burst to kill ball groups. nova was the main heavy hitter followed by standard, graveyards, and ignites, and last damage orbs and conduits. few groups used it because it wasn't brain dead easy to coordinate with as a small group. As a ball group it was easier because you have so many synergies available and a lot more dds, so a lot of non ult synergies could be used for big damage hits. Again, like I said multiple times, it doesnt matter that it was powerful because ball groups will ALWAYS have the ability to nuke pugs. What makes it easier now to nuke pugs even with harmony gone is the fact that pugs get pulled in to your bomb meaning on average more pugs will be caught in a bomb. before you'd only hit those who are in the bomb radius and those who follow you into chokes. Doesn't matter that harmony is nerfed because in most cases now and in the past, it's easy to overdamage pugs. A lot of people don't understand this, all they saw was a big synergy number on their recap. Pugs now still die just as fast as back then, it's just the damage looks different on your recap, but it's still enough to erase your health bar instantly. Again I want to emphasize it's so much easier now because pulls bring in more people to your bomb and you can lock people in for longer if you mistimed your damage, which also makes it more forgiving for the group doing the bombing.

Because you only mentioned banners, conduits, and graveyards, that tells me whatever group you were in most likely heavily favored survivability over maximum damage output, which is fine. Only using those synergies in your comp was the "meta" for ball groups at the time. Again this is fine, it meant groups could last longer at the expense of some damage. Different groups have different comps and goals. If that's the case I could see why you would think smaller groups weren't a threat back then. Just those synergies you mentioned won't net you the highest damage. That's another reason why you didn't see many smaller groups bomb larger groups, most groups have an ego and are afraid to die so they build to have just enough damage while also trying to build as tanky as possible. even with harmony as broken as you say it was, building for a more damage oriented group meant you'd have to sacrifice survivability and it would force you to play smarter knowing you couldnt tank everything, that made that comp harder to play. Now with that damage nerfed you for sure can't take on a decent ball group on your own.

Yes, because we were "meta" the only harmonies that killed us were from another ball group that had an excessive amount of them (or small group + residual damage), which made that meta a little less irritating than the current RoA one. I get what you are saying that a group of 6 could wipe an average group and that did take actual coordination to pull off. Because so few were any good at it, didn't really have to worry. But a group of 12 laying 9+ synergies to saturate an area, it was a different story; it just required rebinding their synergy button to something convenient like the mouse wheel.

With the better groups, it's not so much ego that drives their desire to build tanky, it's that to be good and survive another group hitting you with so many Shackles, Graves, Conduits, etc., without having your healers rage quit, that meant investing in survival. There is usually a benchmark guild on a server - everyone somewhat honest knows who is the best . The number of healers, set choices, skills, health, overall amount of defense was always determined by how much damage they put on us and pretty much only that. The guilds that comped like this and are actually good typically only fear another ball group or just getting overwhelmed.

I don't think ZOS understands this (actually, I know they don;t because they have zero clue how organized groups play and comp). There was a time back in the olden days of yore when we did build almost exclusively for damage. I still remember my clever alchemist + Vicious Death DW sorc with no Vigor and no Resto bar, and how much fun it was to play back then. But ZOS began to add a lot of instant high damage PBoA instances (Coordinated Warden Shalks, harmony, dark convergence, RoA, etc) that made it impossible to survive another group's bomb with 25K health and not having 10 HoTs ticking on us. All of this stuff was added and since it became so easy, as you correctly point out, to put basically 50-60K damage in one bomb, adjustments were necessary. The mere existence of RoA basically mandates this. As much as I hate RoA, I sometimes wonder if it would even be possible to kill a good group without it.

In my opinion, this all or nothing, insta-kill bomb or nothing is everything that is wrong with group Vs. group PvP. It got stale years ago (which is why a lot of us went to the disaster that was New World). Once again ZOS is remaking PvP in their secret laboratory, not telling us anything or even asking us what might some good measures to ensure this new Vengeance campaign doesn't have the same flaws as cyrodiil. But that would require communication (so, what ever happened to that Reddit Ask us anything and promise for more communication after the embarrassing BG stream? Yeah, who was naïve to think anything fruitful would come from that?) and learning from history. Two things we have a poor track record from ZOS.

Yeah that's a good point, building tanky enough to survive groups that are also good or have high damage will still give you enough damage to kill anything else, but especially now, this creates more stalematey exchanges, which becomes unavoidable.

Some groups though it is an ego thing. When you fight a group and they group queue to ic when they reach a certain health threshold, even when there's a queue for gh, I'm inclined to believe that's an ego thing. even more so when you see the same group again later in the night and the same thing happens. these types of groups though usually aren't the best, but they certainly think they are. so i guess your point still stands.

As you might have guessed the groups i used to run are more damage focused. even so, fighting higher tier groups is impossible without rush. absolutely no chance without it. in order to beat them you need the perfect pull with all ults ready and need to correctly read and bait them. I want to say that pulls are what got harmony nerfed, having a pull on top of all that damage was way too strong. But now the fact that you need a set that doesnt obey immunity rules to be able to kill a good group tells me theres a big imbalance between offensive and defensive power. If rush is nerfed, and it for sure needs it (I'd rather see it disabled vs players), damage has to be buffed to offset that. but yeah i do agree that it has gotten pretty stale.

The communication does leave a lot to be desired. A lot of these points were brought up in that q&a post, i hope it gets addressed. but like you said, that reddit ask us anything didn't bring anything fruitful so I'm skeptical we'll get anything much out of it besides surface level answers that don't really give us any new info or insight.

My guess is more of a lack of ego. These groups deep down know they aren;t as good as the others, and that insecurity drives them to lean of defense/healing to make a better public show when they invariably lose.

Those smaller 4-8 mans who build for damage are all good players and they know it. So they have the confidence to rely on their skill rather than the game's mechanics for survival.

If ZOS were smart, they would cater more to mechanics that encouraged the 4-8 style as that not only would open the door to more group playstyles and strategies, but also no doubt help game performance as people would realize less players were needed to function as a group (so less players in a spot) and more offense means more players dying and less calculations to stress the servers. But as 4-8s comp for offense and ZOS is allergic to offense other than gimmicks like RoA and Vicious Death, it's just easier to roll out 12 tanks so that's what most groups do.

If I had any input into the new Vengeance campaign, those players who roll out those low-damage heal-tanks that are built just to survive long enough for the zerg to come save them would be in for a very rude surprise.

I find it hard to believe that horizontally and vertically scaling the servers wouldn’t improve performance. When they upgraded the servers last time there was a noticeable performance improvement. Sets and skills shouldn’t be an impossible thing to optimise regardless and the pvp has been slowly drained away over time. I have a feeling this could be the nail in the coffin for ESO pvp.