The Zerg Drama Thread (formerly "how to fight ball groups")

Drummerx04

So what's your strategy for killing the 4-8 man heavy armor warden heal blobs that still deal insane AoE burst?

zyk

Prior to 3.1, I thought ball groups were fairly vulnerable to harassment from randoms. But since HOTR, Earthgore has made harassing and wiping good ball groups much more difficult. It's basically a get out of jail free card. With it, a group is actually at a disadvantage when fighting alongside other players from their faction.

I get the feeling ZOS will fail to recognize it is the reason ball groups have been stronger since 3.1 and will instead nerf/buff something completely unrelated like siege.

Crown

@Sanct16 makes a really good point (at least in how I interpreted his response).

I originally intended this to be a simple list to help some of the regular pug groups (guilds that take in randoms) know what to do (and not do) when dealing with competent and organised raids. It's been expanding enough that most of the content should probably be moved independently to guides or lists on "offence", "defence", and more general play in groups, and perhaps simplify it down to a few primary "do" and "don't" lists for fighting against organised vs spread/randoms.

I'll give that some thought along with the rest of the responses and will update things over the weekend.

gabriebe

Been playing a little bit on my tank DK and ended up slotting Leap because if you have good timing, it can really split the group in half. Especially if you see them buffing up, and you end up stunning the tail while the front goes forward.

Minno

Drummerx04 wrote: »

So what's your strategy for killing the 4-8 man heavy armor warden heal blobs that still deal insane AoE burst?

It's possible wardens absorb shield is absorbing more than it's intended to.

Either classes need a buff or wardens need a nerf. I vote for buff along with changes to CP power creep.

pzschrek

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

You forgot the only 2 things which actually matter.

1. Zerg Surf with your faction and hit them when they are already fighting twice their number

2. Gather as many people to your group possible whilst also following 1. Preferably 24+

+1. This is the only way to defeat a competent ball group consistently. That or another competent ball group, preferably combined with one of the two options.

As someone who largely plays in these groups, you guys have this part down pat actually. Seems like these days in Vivec you either have essentially nobody to fight or a 60 man horde.

Someone negated us on the ram on an inner and dumped oils last night and we were all like "Hey! That guy read the forum post!"

Rickter

Lots of amazing knowledge bombs in here by some of the PvP Hall of Famers. We need more threads like this. I really appreciate @Crown 's unapologetic break down of

Crown wrote: »

Lets say you're running solo, and you've been ganking opponents, getting a lot of kills, then all of a sudden the guy you tried to gank didn't die (he was running mage light so wasn't stunned from your stealth hit, and earthgore saved his [snip]). He hits mage light, gap closes to you and keeps hitting mage light to prevent you from stealthing, then 3-4 other players chase you around a rock for 30 seconds and kill you. Are you going to complain and hate whisper because you died? Was it unfair for that player to assume the role of "keep the opponent visible" while others kill you? Many seem to think so. Many even seem to think that they should have been allowed to escape, because they're all alone and the only people who have the right to kill them are other solo players.

Probably the most truth Ive seen on these forums in a long time. Bookmarked. Awesomed ( to you all). Keep it coming

Sincerely,
An appreciative PvPer

Lexxypwns

@Crown I respect what you're trying to do, but, your advice is pretty basic here and just comes down to "outplay them"

The problem is that most remaining groups like this are also more experienced than their remaining competition therefore the advice to simply "outplay them" doesn't work for most of the playerbase. When we look at a guild like Drac, for example, they're some of the most experienced players in the game and the learning curve to outplay them is enormous, daunting for newer groups. That doesn't mean you can't get wins here or there, but it means that just telling people to outplay these ball groups is functionally useless information.

Then you factor in not only their experience, but all the time they've played together and even if you have experienced players on the other side its very difficult to match their level of coordination as a group. Currently there are no consistently viable counters against the types of groups for less experienced players

Crown

@Lexxypwns You're right, and that similar to what Sanct implied.. I'm changing the way this is presented, so it'll be more along the lines of tips for how to contribute rather than the way it's been interpreted.

umagon

Drummerx04 wrote: »

So what's your strategy for killing the 4-8 man heavy armor warden heal blobs that still deal insane AoE burst?

The best way to figure this out is to look at the opposing group as collective number wise. Many of those types of groups utilize builds that maximize damage output. And because of the way the game functions this means that they can simultaneously maximize healing output with the same build. So, the solution is to lower both their damage output and healing output. Once you get to a value where your group’s damage output can outpace their recovery capabilities then they can be defeated if they do not have any counter measures.

You want to look at strategies for keeping minor maim and major defile on the opposing group. With major defile, placing a full 100 points into the befoul champion points greatly enhances its effectiveness. It also lowers health regeneration and with the addition of champ points into siphoner the health regeneration is further reduced. Siphoner also eats up a debuff lot so it can help reduce chance of the major defile being cleansed.

One of the item sets that gets overlooked is Durok's Bane assuming it still functions the way it used to (I haven’t tested it a while) it triggers off aoe. And with champ points into befoul it will increase the defile effect as the effect on the set is major defile. The only problem is they moved this set to pve land and it binds on pickup.

Just remember, when in doubt math it out.

Rickter

So are we saying that, amoungst the remaining PvP raid guilds left, <Dracarys> is number 1? legit question. Cuz it sounds that way.

Lexxypwns

Crown wrote: »

@Lexxypwns You're right, and that similar to what Sanct implied.. I'm changing the way this is presented, so it'll be more along the lines of tips for how to contribute rather than the way it's been interpreted.

I'm not trying to be critical of you at all, btw, I love that you're presenting these things for the public and I think all the advice is very solid. I'm more commenting on the unfortunate state of the game whereby newer guild groups will struggle to consistently get wins against these meta groups, even following your advice. The losses are going to be very one sided and the wins will be hard fought and its gonna be virtually impossible to stop them just camping and being right back.

Docmandu

It's mostly organized ball group versus unorganized PuGs / solo's... even without all the AOE bombing tools, they'd still be able to take down larger groups of pugs/solos... the destro and other bombing tools just makes it more easy-mode.

Minno

pzschrek wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

You forgot the only 2 things which actually matter.

1. Zerg Surf with your faction and hit them when they are already fighting twice their number

2. Gather as many people to your group possible whilst also following 1. Preferably 24+

+1. This is the only way to defeat a competent ball group consistently. That or another competent ball group, preferably combined with one of the two options.

As someone who largely plays in these groups, you guys have this part down pat actually. Seems like these days in Vivec you either have essentially nobody to fight or a 60 man horde.

Someone negated us on the ram on an inner and dumped oils last night and we were all like "Hey! That guy read the forum post!"

I think the 60 Zerg fights are fun. The coordinated ulti drops have more errors, you can flank to try to pull players to focus on you for smaller fights, and you can randomly try to heal the pugs or support them that have more chance to lose.

They can be more fun if there were ways to check-mate snares/immobilze and make the movement faster. It's only frustrating when you get hit by 5 encases that stack with talons plus a plethora of snares, and the only options are mist form/forward momentum and major expedition with sprint hidden behind pot cooldown while being locked out of your abilities when sprinting.

Crown

@Lexxypwns Critical is good, it means that there is something that can be improved (or that the person being critical is a <snip> which I know that you are not (in this case ;-) )!

Rickter wrote: »

So are we saying that, amoungst the remaining PvP raid guilds left, <Dracarys> is number 1? legit question. Cuz it sounds that way.

@Rickter I would say that on PC/NA right now, Dracarys are the most consistent large group that has the most min/maxers in the most synergistic and complementary group composition since VE stopped running. When they're running as a guild, there are few groups out there who can fight them on even terms. If they don't have 10+ players, then their strategies don't work, and they can be considered similar to most other reasonably good players.

There are a lot of other great players out there, the challenge is that they don't play together, and many disdain groups larger than 6 (ish). It doesn't matter how good you are, a group of 6 won't take out a group of 16 (where all are of similar skill) with any consistency.

At times that I've run groups of similar numbers to them on DC, we've had 50% win rates against them. Unfortunately that's not very often these days, and when running smaller groups we've had to use siege or perfect timing and coordination (and the players/pugs around us - as much as they can be used) to win (and even then my group of 6-8 ish has a 25% win rate under those conditions - if you can call that a win). Even then, they can justifiably say that they were wiped by double or triple their numbers in the area - even if it was only 10 people who actually did damage to them.

Talcyndl

Biro123 wrote: »

TL:DR; play as they do?

Play as they do but have more negates. The tie breaker on otherwise equal ball groups is which one has more/better timed negates.

Crown

I've updated the content, and split some of it off into other pages/guides.

The content of this guide is now simpler and more clear/concise, with the wordier concepts in their own sections.

Please see the original post (edited) and re-comment!

Thanks!

Lexxypwns

Talcyndl wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

TL:DR; play as they do?

Play as they do but have more negates. The tie breaker on otherwise equal ball groups is which one has more/better timed negates.

Earthgore removes negates so it's not more it's just the clutch one

Crown

Sanct16 wrote: »

I don't really see why you would want to cast a 2nd wave of ultimates with a 4 second delay.

@Sanct16 I spent about an hour tonight with 7 people, knowing that we wouldn't win most fights vs Drac (I think there were 14) and then vs TM (there were at least 30 AD around each time, and we guessed about 15 of them TM) in order to pay attention to ultimate timings.

Quite a few people were questioning this, so I wanted the empirical evidence. I wonder if anyone questioned why I stood in the destros and kept coming back with only a few people.. We wanted to get the logs for them all.

In seven engagements vs Drac, six of them had two waves of destros, and one of them had only one:
Fight 1: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 5 seconds between the first tick of each wave. Fight 2: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 3: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 4: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 5: Wave one had 4 destros, and wave two had 2 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 6: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
-Note that zergling cast his twice (after killing a lot of AD pugs), so I counted his as part of both waves.
Fight 7: Wave one had 4 destros with two seconds between the first tick of the first one to start and last one to start.

In three engagements vs TM, we couldn't see waves, though there were at least six destros with start (tick) times spanning 6, 6, and 7 seconds. There were actually more, but we didn't count those from players who we were pretty sure weren't pat of TM.

Fantasia only started playing about 20 minutes ago (when I logged off to review logs and type this up) otherwise I'd have wanted to get data from them too.

Regarding why have two waves, in many cases there's no need to blow more destros if your opponents are squishy. You can see by about the second tick if the players you're attacking are likely to die from the first wave, and you can call the second wave to both clean them up and kill more as you move through them.

It takes very good awareness and precise calls from the leader for this to be done well. It's possible I'm over thinking things and giving more credit than is really due in a situation where some players are just slow (or laggy) and they hit their ultimates late, though I prefer to over estimate my opponents than under estimate them.

Rin_Senya

Crown wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

I don't really see why you would want to cast a 2nd wave of ultimates with a 4 second delay.

@Sanct16 I spent about an hour tonight with 7 people, knowing that we wouldn't win most fights vs Drac (I think there were 14) and then vs TM (there were at least 30 AD around each time, and we guessed about 15 of them TM) in order to pay attention to ultimate timings.

Quite a few people were questioning this, so I wanted the empirical evidence. I wonder if anyone questioned why I stood in the destros and kept coming back with only a few people.. We wanted to get the logs for them all.

In seven engagements vs Drac, six of them had two waves of destros, and one of them had only one:
Fight 1: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 5 seconds between the first tick of each wave. Fight 2: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 3: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 4: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 5: Wave one had 4 destros, and wave two had 2 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 6: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
-Note that zergling cast his twice (after killing a lot of AD pugs), so I counted his as part of both waves.
Fight 7: Wave one had 4 destros with two seconds between the first tick of the first one to start and last one to start.

In three engagements vs TM, we couldn't see waves, though there were at least six destros with start (tick) times spanning 6, 6, and 7 seconds. There were actually more, but we didn't count those from players who we were pretty sure weren't pat of TM.

Fantasia only started playing about 20 minutes ago (when I logged off to review logs and type this up) otherwise I'd have wanted to get data from them too.

Regarding why have two waves, in many cases there's no need to blow more destros if your opponents are squishy. You can see by about the second tick if the players you're attacking are likely to die from the first wave, and you can call the second wave to both clean them up and kill more as you move through them.

It takes very good awareness and precise calls from the leader for this to be done well. It's possible I'm over thinking things and giving more credit than is really due in a situation where some players are just slow (or laggy) and they hit their ultimates late, though I prefer to over estimate my opponents than under estimate them.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Crown wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

I don't really see why you would want to cast a 2nd wave of ultimates with a 4 second delay.

@Sanct16 I spent about an hour tonight with 7 people, knowing that we wouldn't win most fights vs Drac (I think there were 14) and then vs TM (there were at least 30 AD around each time, and we guessed about 15 of them TM) in order to pay attention to ultimate timings.

Quite a few people were questioning this, so I wanted the empirical evidence. I wonder if anyone questioned why I stood in the destros and kept coming back with only a few people.. We wanted to get the logs for them all.

In seven engagements vs Drac, six of them had two waves of destros, and one of them had only one:
Fight 1: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 5 seconds between the first tick of each wave. Fight 2: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 3: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 4: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 5: Wave one had 4 destros, and wave two had 2 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 6: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
-Note that zergling cast his twice (after killing a lot of AD pugs), so I counted his as part of both waves.
Fight 7: Wave one had 4 destros with two seconds between the first tick of the first one to start and last one to start.

btw,
When we first fought you in BRK we had 3 destros in group,
We later had between 3-4 on Roe (depending on crashes)

IxSTALKERxI

It's all situational as to what ultimate's you use when. There is a lot of overlap in this discussion. GvG, organised group fighting outnumbered against ungrouped players, fighting an organised group with less players are all completely different situations and ultimate's will be used differently accordingly.

Vilestride

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

It's all situational as to what ultimate's you use when. There is a lot of overlap in this discussion. GvG, organised group fighting outnumbered against ungrouped players, fighting an organised group with less players are all completely different situations and ultimate's will be used differently accordingly.

Yeah I was thinking pretty much this. So what you're saying about a few seconds delay between waves crown is probably more relevant to fighting large groups of pugs.

BUT.

Given the purpose of this thread I'd say that is counter-intuitive because against organized groups you definitely want to spread your destros out more. I can't specify a time because that is completely situational. I don't know how I would phrase it for educational purposes but I'd definitely be cautious about saying simply spread your damage out by a few seconds.

PenguinInACan

Crown wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

I don't really see why you would want to cast a 2nd wave of ultimates with a 4 second delay.

@Sanct16 I spent about an hour tonight with 7 people, knowing that we wouldn't win most fights vs Drac (I think there were 14) and then vs TM (there were at least 30 AD around each time, and we guessed about 15 of them TM) in order to pay attention to ultimate timings.

Quite a few people were questioning this, so I wanted the empirical evidence. I wonder if anyone questioned why I stood in the destros and kept coming back with only a few people.. We wanted to get the logs for them all.

In seven engagements vs Drac, six of them had two waves of destros, and one of them had only one:
Fight 1: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 5 seconds between the first tick of each wave. Fight 2: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 3: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 4: Wave one had 2 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 5: Wave one had 4 destros, and wave two had 2 destros. There were 3 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
Fight 6: Wave one had 3 destros, and wave two had 3 destros. There were 4 seconds between the first tick of each wave.
-Note that zergling cast his twice (after killing a lot of AD pugs), so I counted his as part of both waves.
Fight 7: Wave one had 4 destros with two seconds between the first tick of the first one to start and last one to start.

In three engagements vs TM, we couldn't see waves, though there were at least six destros with start (tick) times spanning 6, 6, and 7 seconds. There were actually more, but we didn't count those from players who we were pretty sure weren't pat of TM.

Fantasia only started playing about 20 minutes ago (when I logged off to review logs and type this up) otherwise I'd have wanted to get data from them too.

Regarding why have two waves, in many cases there's no need to blow more destros if your opponents are squishy. You can see by about the second tick if the players you're attacking are likely to die from the first wave, and you can call the second wave to both clean them up and kill more as you move through them.

It takes very good awareness and precise calls from the leader for this to be done well. It's possible I'm over thinking things and giving more credit than is really due in a situation where some players are just slow (or laggy) and they hit their ultimates late, though I prefer to over estimate my opponents than under estimate them.

We call specific people to destro depending on the situation. Its usually one/two at a time, and it all depends who we are fighting. Ideal timing we use is half the duration of a destro per push leaving enough time to pull with damage cover as counters always happen on the retreat. Doing this gives the ability to try and stagger the counter bomb enough to reset prox timers and roll the appropriate damage.

Obviously this is all fluid though, considering tactics aren't really that hard to predict in ESO. Keeping it fresh with new timings/quantity of ults not only helps with decreasing predictability but also with individual player development and raid co-operation.

Crown

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO @Vilestride @PenguinInACan The observation of two waves of destros from you guys is accurate then, and thanks for the clarifications. You do the same as I/we have in the past few larger guilds that I've run with - as expected.

@Sanct16 Being as my goal is to help the less education/experienced/organised folks out there, regardless of the why or the techniques in calling things, telling them to expect multiple waves of destros a few seconds apart makes sense. It's what I do when I have a large enough group, what most of the other leaders that I'm friendly with have confirmed that they do - or did, and now we've confirmed that Drac does it too.

technohic

zyk wrote: »

Prior to 3.1, I thought ball groups were fairly vulnerable to harassment from randoms. But since HOTR, Earthgore has made harassing and wiping good ball groups much more difficult. It's basically a get out of jail free card. With it, a group is actually at a disadvantage when fighting alongside other players from their faction.

I get the feeling ZOS will fail to recognize it is the reason ball groups have been stronger since 3.1 and will instead nerf/buff something completely unrelated like siege.

It's like they took Malubeth that they nerfed, then turned around and introduced something way better that works for an entire group.

pzschrek

Do not underestimate the power of Sanct's Ultimate Organizer in the hands of a competent raid leader and good group composition. At a glance the lead knows exactly what ults they have and how close everyone is to having their ult up.

It gives the lead the ability to call only the ults they think they need at the exact moment they need it with tactical precision that is simply impossible otherwise.

A good raid lead can keep the pain train rolling for an awfully long time with that kind of situational awareness.

It's even harder to get everyone to run this than it is to find people who want to play group builds, but it's essential in my mind.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Crown wrote: »

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO @Vilestride @PenguinInACan The observation of two waves of destros from you guys is accurate then, and thanks for the clarifications. You do the same as I/we have in the past few larger guilds that I've run with - as expected.

@Sanct16 Being as my goal is to help the less education/experienced/organised folks out there, regardless of the why or the techniques in calling things, telling them to expect multiple waves of destros a few seconds apart makes sense. It's what I do when I have a large enough group, what most of the other leaders that I'm friendly with have confirmed that they do - or did, and now we've confirmed that Drac does it too.

I belive Penguin is speaking from TM?

On behalf of Drac (it's generally me leading) our tactics are variable based on what we fight. The situations you mention from yesterday are pug fights which your group just happened to be included in amongst the other pugs I.e. sustained dps is important hence wave based destro's.

When I pushed your group in BRK (After faking out your bomb on the breach) we used 2 storms because you were about 1/2 our size and that's what I expected to be enough to kill you and based on the number of pugs present (almost none ep can't count when shouting in zone) there wasn't an immediate threat so could afford to use 2/3 even though we wouldn't get them back from the kills.

I will also say.
1. Personally I wouldn't say our group is large in most situations we face. We run from 6-16 and our tactics work perfectly at any size within this range with of course scaling based on enemy size faced and expectation. Considering groups like VE would normally be between 16-40 I think comparing the 2 in your previous comments is a little false.
2. If you are making a guide to specifically counter groups like ours 2 waves of destro's isn't gnna hurt us unless you outnumber us.
3. I would rather you encouraged more groups to form and actually compete rather than encouraging pug surfing and sieging. This way gvg type fights where the emphasis isn't actually on destro would be entertaining and enjoyable.
4. Calling groups like ours Proxy/Destro tanks is not correct. We run 0 tanks and also have 0 tank abilities like guard etc. Our survivability come from superior movement and coordination.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

pzschrek wrote: »

Do not underestimate the power of Sanct's Ultimate Organizer in the hands of a competent raid leader and good group composition. At a glance the lead knows exactly what ults they have and how close everyone is to having their ult up.

It gives the lead the ability to call only the ults they think they need at the exact moment they need it with tactical precision that is simply impossible otherwise.

A good raid lead can keep the pain train rolling for an awfully long time with that kind of situational awareness.

It's even harder to get everyone to run this than it is to find people who want to play group builds, but it's essential in my mind.

Good groups didn't need an addon to tell who's ultis were up prior to the release. It's a quality of life improvement rather than a necessity.

Crown

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

1. Personally I wouldn't say our group is large in most situations we face. We run from 6-16 and our tactics work perfectly at any size within this range with of course scaling based on enemy size faced and expectation.

When there are equal numbers of Drac tabbards to my group (usually 6-8), it's rare that we don't win fights (as we did three times yesterday before you got more people on, after which we had almost no chance). Your crew excel when you have the group composition that tends to come at the 10-12 point. Les than that, and I don't mean to be insulting in any way, but you're not a threat to a group that builds and plays regularly for the 6-8 person comp. It's probably not an official Drac raid when there are less and it's just friends playing together with tabards on, so it's probably not a good way to evaluate, but that's the opinion that we've developed from our experience the past couple months in playing late afternoon and early evening.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Considering groups like VE would normally be between 16-40 I think comparing the 2 in your previous comments is a little false.

You're speaking to the same issue that most well recognised guilds have. When I was running AD, it was very, very rare that there was more than one full group, though the pugs that ended up in the same place were referred to as the CrownZerg. When PM ends up in the same place as you guys, you get referred to as "PM Group 3" or more often these days "KUSH Group 4".

I can't speak to the history of VE, though from the point I started running with them (and leading groups for a few months from 6pm-9pm after which the west coast crew came on / official raid started) there were never more than 24 at any time. On the rare occasion where there were a few more that wanted in group some of us would split off and run a small man elsewhere on the map.

More often than not, the fights that I was part of VE vs Drac were 16-24 VE players and 10-15 Drac players. We almost always outnumbered you by at least a few, and had at least an 80% win rate in fights (I tended to play 6:30pm to 9:30pm eastern, so it's possible things went differently after I went to bed, and VE didn't usually fill up before I logged out). Many of the wins could be attributed to being outnumbered, as (at least when I was leading) I liked to think that our two groups skill levels were similar.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

2. If you are making a guide to specifically counter groups like ours 2 waves of destro's isn't gnna hurt us unless you outnumber us.

It's not specifically yours, but you are a subset of it. There are a few groups out there running almost all tanks with low damage, and depend on 10+ destros to take out opponents. They saw what you do, and tried to emulate it. They're successful in that smaller groups have a very hard time killing them, though unsuccessful in that they don't have the regular players in dedicated group-oriented comps so need more players to accomplish similar goals. The way that randoms, pugs, and less experienced groups can contribute to taking such groups out are similar, and that's what I'm going for here.. It's not a guide specifically step by step how to take such groups out, but it contains all the principles that should be considered. It had evolved a bit, and will evolve more in the next few days as I have the time to update it.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

3. I would rather you encouraged more groups to form and actually compete rather than encouraging pug surfing and sieging. This way gvg type fights where the emphasis isn't actually on destro would be entertaining and enjoyable.

I would rather this as well, though my time of managing most of a faction is long over, and my interest in the game is simply playing with friends for a few hours at a time and not really caring about campaign/map anymore. I play all three factions these days just looking for entertainment. The groups and guilds that run regularly don't have the dedicated players, or tend to be more prima donnas who all want to run 1vPotato builds together and can't do much vs. a group with a good comp.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

4. Calling groups like ours Proxy/Destro tanks is not correct. We run 0 tanks and also have 0 tank abilities like guard etc. Our survivability come from superior movement and coordination.

Your survivability comes from the composition, and the players who are using the right abilities at the right times. If you didn't have the right casts of retreating, you'd get snared and wipe. If you didn't have the two templars using healing ults at the right time, you'd wipe. If you didn't have at least two high damage players on destros, you wouldn't kill the pugs, get VD procs on the rest, and smaller groups would be able to wipe you. If you didn't have the cross heals, you'd have to field more healers taking away from the synergy, and your performance would drop and you'd wipe more often.

Many of your players are running above 28k health, 24k resists and above 3.8k impen (including buffs per the numbers I see when hitting you), and that's borderline tank build. You might not have official tanks, though most of your groups' builds are on the tanky side.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to survivability, and there are a lot of ways to counter / play against it - it's just that there aren't many guild/groups out there who want to put the effort in as a group rather than as individuals. By educating the masses, hopefully it will make people THINK about how to win, and they can get their guilds/groups to play better.