The Current Destro Pain Train Meta Needs To Die

Agrippa_Invisus

The title expresses the thing I feel most heavily, but let's discuss it a bit more in depth.

Right now the current meta we are seeing is large groups plowing through others with layered destro ultis, almost exclusively being run by Magblades, with the occasional sorc.

This meta is leading to hyper specialized, pigeonholed support characters from other classes that are all built entirely to make sure those Magblades are 'delivered' to their intended target, or can survive long enough to build another Destro ulti. Non-magblades are actively discouraged from doing damage, so they don't steal killing blows, as that will cause the magblade's ulti to build slower.

Damage dealt by these groups is almost always in bursts, as they slam into their targets, often killing other players in seconds (or less than for those right in the center of the storms).

And it hasn't changed recently at all. Even the damage nerf to the Eye of the Storm ultimate has done little to modify this. The answer to the nerf? More bomb blades.

This issue, and how much of a barrier for entry there can be for pvp, combines to really discourage new players from entering or staying in Cyrodiil. Nevermind having to grind 690 CP (sub 450 being dog chow in the field) if you're a new player, or dealing with the lag, or the pathetically laborious RFTW mails that give you almost nothing and are barely worth the time to clear from your mail.

It exacerbates lag issues when full raids stack together in one tiny area and then blast it with numerous ultis, heals, and damage taken in return.

The focus on burst shrinks the TTK (Time to Kill) down to miniscule numbers. Players obliterated in moments have little chance to actually engage in combat to feel like they've contributed anything to a fight. It becomes more about raid leader skill in positioning and knowing when to push than individual players being above or below average.

Cyrodiil needs to change. The slowness of this forum lately is a barometer of how interest in it has waned more and more and more lately. I don't know exactly how long there will continue to be a sustainable pvp population, but I don't see it lasting a lot longer.

One of the things that can extend its lifespan, imo, is killing the destro meta. More build variety, less specialized builds, more sustain over immense burst.

Agrippa_Invisus

Addendum:

Yes, I know there are a LOT of other issues that cause PVP to be in the state it is.

Such as:

1. Lag
2. Low quality rewards
3. Lag
4. Players funneled into laggy, zergy corridors (EG: Bleaks, Alessia Bridge, Ash Gate, etc)
5. Lag
6. Load Screens
7. Lag
8. End of campaign rewards being very low quality
9. Lag
10. Did I mention the lag?

alephthiago

I do run in an organized destro train group but agree with this wholeheartedly, just keep in mind that bats, meteor and proxy det are still out there and a magblade built for destro bombs can still deal a good amount of damage with these tools.

Ghostbane

Impulse Trains
Wall of Element Trains
Steel Tornado Trains
Standard Trains
Destro Trains
etc

One goes away, another rises.

Adernath

Instead of calling for a nerf, I'd like to see some interesting counter abilities, for example perhaps a buff to the 1h and shield ultima which reflects, for a given amount of time, all damage taken to the sender (including aoe). And in such a way that it is not OP in a small fight. So it will be very dangerous for a large zergtrain.

Edit: I know its a just a fun suggestion but let's be creative

DHale

Agrippa, let me start off by saying you are a great player but I am really not sure why you are writing this post. For me this is not a troll post or a stfu post I am honestly trying to understand. You have been my opponent for three years save the time I did not see you where I am assuming ( but do not know) you took a break. The destro meta is alive and well... in all your teammates and your faction mates fighting less than five meters from you. Inv and Dra are running more destro ult than anyone else on EP and honestly more than DC and AD possibly combined.

Now don’t get me wrong if we could get more bombers we would, heck knows we try. That said, bombers win fights. When you/we were fighting in Sej and Brk on Friday or Saturday the bombers were what finished every fight on both red’s side and for yellow’s side. When I would lock you down with my own talons and fossilize a half dozen people descended upon me on numerous occasions even multiple destro ultimates just for one light armor wearing DK.

If you want to change this variable then start at home. Don’t stack in 50 person fights and have 5 destro bombers in your own groups and that of your friends. Personally, I run a class I don’t really like in a build I also don’t really like just to fight the ep horde of destro bombers. Agree it’s not fun but it wasn’t made famous by your opposing forces.

Joy_Division

Ghostbane wrote: »

Impulse Trains
Wall of Element Trains
Steel Tornado Trains
Standard Trains
Destro Trains
etc

One goes away, another rises.

Choo-choo!

We're playing in a Cyrodiil in which the designers think Standard of Might is the ...ehem... standard in which all ultimates ought to be measured by.

I don't anticipate a new meta emerging anytime soon as much as I share the OP's concerns,

HoloYoitsu

Ghostbane wrote: »

Impulse Trains
Wall of Element Trains
Steel Tornado Trains
Standard Trains
Destro Trains
etc

One goes away, another rises.

The whole problem boils down to the fact that eye of the potato is a PBAOE that is sufficiently strong as to make using any ground target AOE ults non viable by comparison because A) they will get negated and B ) they are stationary.

Solution: drop eye of the potato dmg down to the level of bats/sleet, lower the cost to reflect the lower dmg.

Domander

It would be cool to have an ultimate that absorbs all of the damage you take for a few seconds and then unleashes all of that damage into an aoe.

caeliusstarbreaker

Honestly, you can keep ulti dmg at the same or higher. Just exponentially increase ulti cost. No ULTIMATE should really cost less than 300. Make people have to use their abilities in combat. Cause let’s look at it generally now. For everything incap does, single target or not, the cost is way too low and it’s functionally another skill, destro ulti is a massive pbaoe that ramps up in dmg, leap is a huge burst ulti costs like 95 on the stam side. Even
Dawnbreaker, big burst the first dot tick hits before you can get up from its cc. Not to mention nb gets ulti just for taking a pot, templar for casting dawns wrath, dk’s For hitting earthen heart, wardens... enough said there, sorcs get massive ulti redux. And that’s not even counting defensive ulti. If ultimates were ultimates and not another skill you can use so frequently people would potentially have to build to include things like dots, extra mag sustain for a stam build, extra stam regen for a mag build.

Publius_Scipio

Whats the point of changing anything anyways? Like Ghost Waffles the elf said, guilds will simply jump on the next bandwagon of "most bang for the buck". No one will stop the masses from gravitating towards the strongest and most effective thing to use. That goes for solo also. It's the nature of it all.

HoloYoitsu

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Whats the point of changing anything anyways? Like Ghost Waffles the elf said, guilds will simply jump on the next bandwagon of "most bang for the buck". No one will stop the masses from gravitating towards the strongest and most effective thing to use. That goes for solo also. It's the nature of it all.

There is a huge qualitative difference between the destro meta and the previous metas because eye of the potato dmg moves with the group. The 'group bomb' dmg is mobile rather than centered on stationary, negatable ground target aoe. Before eye of the potato, if you wanted non negatable dmg your options were dawnbreakers (which is directional & smaller area) or bats (which is lower dmg).

One thing I'd like to add to grippa's point is earthgore's auto negate effect needs to go. As if ground placed ults weren't already gimped enough in the destotato meta...

Kilandros

Could probably just make EoTS blockable and it'd be fine. But I do agree that this Meta is quite boring and stale. That said, I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon thanks to placeable Ults being strictly inferior since they can be negated (fine) and earthgored (lol who thought this set up?).

I would LOVE to see them balance Ults so that stationary Ults are the heavy damage dealers and mobile ults are more utility. But alas, ESO is basically a parallel universe where reason and accountability go to die.

Kilandros

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Whats the point of changing anything anyways? Like Ghost Waffles the elf said, guilds will simply jump on the next bandwagon of "most bang for the buck". No one will stop the masses from gravitating towards the strongest and most effective thing to use. That goes for solo also. It's the nature of it all.

There is a huge qualitative difference between the destro meta and the previous metas because eye of the potato dmg moves with the group. The 'group bomb' dmg is mobile rather than centered on stationary, negatable ground target aoe. Before eye of the potato, if you wanted non negatable dmg your options were dawnbreakers (which is directional & smaller area) or bats (which is lower dmg).

One thing I'd like to add to grippa's point is earthgore's auto negate effect needs to go. As if ground placed ults weren't already gimped enough in the destotato meta...

Pretty much this. No meta is perfect, but previous metas were more interesting than this one. Summer 2016 was IMO a solid meta - you had a bunch of classes and ults in play, movement and finding chokes was basically the number 1 most important thing a group could do. I loved leading groups back then. Now it's just call out destros / wait for earthgore proc / call more destros and negates.

Lucky28

ZOS just really shot themselves in the foot over past couple of patches. i honestly don't see any way they can possible fix it aside from hitting the reset button and going back to either 1.5 or 1.6 or even homestead and starting over from scratch from there.

and they're not going to do that so. i don't really expect any fixes or improvements to cyrodiil. just play till they kill all the classes in the next few patches.

Sixty5

What a surprise, co-ordinated groups built around stacking AOE are good at taking down stacks of enemies.

Who'd have thought?

Telel

One of Telel's many many many mottos in PVP is this.

"If you claim to be better. Then do better"

This is usually used to help coax people away from being a dirty rotten Griff, or bloop zergling, and onto the path of the good sports. AKA Those AD who still PVP instead of hiding on the bridge.

But it also applies to anything a humble one deems 'unsporting'. Which incidentally includes running builds that require groups to only fight when their easy mode AOE ultimates are up. ESPECIALLY when you already outnumber your opponents.

In the pack this has become known as 'being DCed'. Usually because someone also crashes out when it happens....

So really the only way things will get better is if those of us who claim at least a bare minimum of competence do better. Then stick to it even when it becomes 'hard'.

Oh, and laugh at all the so called 'good' players who hide behind locked populations, and blob trains. Like that one streamer who's lost some credibility with the pack after the last couple of weeks....

Sadly in a world where one can get cheap off brand soda from the man in the candy van it becomes very hard to convince such elves that they should walk down to the real store and buy actual Dr.Pepper. Also yes, the van is a very bright shade of purple.

Glory

ITT: People who think that because groups run a skill due to the meta, that means that those groups approve of the meta.

Agrippa is just pointing out what has been what many perceive as a stale meta: destro ultimate spam + Vicious Death to kill people, otherwise turtle up and wait for more destro ultimate spam.

Xsorus

Its real simple, just like DAOC.

Don't have Mobile PBAE's

How hard is that to do?

MaximillianDiE

This meta is what finally killed this game for me having stuck with it since closed beta. Sad to see in the 3 months since I last logged in it looks like nothing much has changed.

Hempyre

I agree wholeheartedly, this needs to change.

I was playing over the weekend and last night and there were several of these ball groups out. It's absolutely ridiculous that even with three times the numbers of the group it's barely feasible to take one or two out. It's discouraging, and it makes pvp unenjoyable. I was under the impression that ZOS was working to fix this issue, but all they've done is introduce gear sets that continue to support it.

I don't blame the various guilds that do this, as ZOS has both nerfed effective counters and added sets that perpetuate this gameplay style.

They use it because it works.

However when two or three of these groups can completely dominate an entire faction all evening long, there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Organized group games playing should have the reward of strength over disorganized groups, but not to the point where they can completely dominate three or four times their numbers. I would think most of the player base would be casual/solo vs these groups. You think that's enjoyable?

I know for myself, I just logged out, it wasn't fun.

It's one thing when you lose because 50 or 60 of an opposing faction came in, used camps, worked harder than your faction. It's another when a group of 10 just can't be taken out even by significantly larger numbers.

When you add all of the bugs that have been (re-)introduced with every DLC, including the sounds dropping out, which never happened before CWC, the excessive load screens, skills that aren't operating correctly, input lag, etc... with no ETA on any fix, and no communication from ZOS, it's making me start looking at other games. I like eso, but it's gone in the wrong direction.

As much as I like new content quarterly, I cringe when they announce a new dlc because the track record of the last three for bad changes poorly thought out gear options and bugs isn't acceptable. I'd like to see a pause on new content while they fix the current plethora of long standing issues.

IxSTALKERxI

Whilst the meta hasn't changed, the damage nerfs to eye have helped imo. Perhaps reducing the radius from 10m down to 8m would improve things. Earthgore is the main problem atm - it's making stationary ultimates / ground effects even more useless than what they normally would be. I also think that removing damage aoe caps could be a good move as this would allow you to nerf the VD proc tooltip slightly and destro radius whilst still making it possible to wipe large numbers with other well placed ultimate's.

Lucky28

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Whilst the meta hasn't changed, the damage nerfs to eye have helped imo. Perhaps reducing the radius from 10m down to 8m would improve things. Earthgore is the main problem atm - it's making stationary ultimates / ground effects even more useless than what they normally would be. I also think that removing damage aoe caps could be a good move as this would allow you to nerf the VD proc tooltip slightly and destro radius whilst still making it possible to wipe large numbers with other well placed ultimate's.

i agree with earthgore. it sucks that ults like nove and veil of blades are completely worthless in pvp regardless of situation. it would be nice if they dramatically reduced the cost of those ults, made them un-negatable or something to make them viable.

IxSTALKERxI

Actually I always thought it'd be cool if eye of the storm was like a ring or a donut that did damage around the caster but not in the center of the AoE where the caster is located. Probs wouldn't change anything but it would be more creative and cool.

Anazasi

?.... What has EP (speaking from an AD PC NA Vivec perspective) gotten tired of stacking 12 to 14 nightblades in groups supported by specialized builds that make a group really strong? Is this the kettle calling the pot black or the pot calling the kettle black? Or has stacking negates in groups designed to stop this type of meta play just become to tiresome? Or has all the "get good small man" groups decided they don't enjoy fighting magic builds and / or raids in cyrodiil? So really what has changed your position? why are you "invictus" crying for a nerf to something your group has embraced? What has happened? Gotten tired of your little toy and now you don't want anyone else to play with it? Or maybe you've just gotten tired of zerg surfing along with other EP guilds pretending you are "gud". Seriously what was so dramatic, life altering, come to "Jesus" moment that has caused to you see the light and post such a well thought out argument on why the meta is bad?

Enquiring minds want to know........not the reason you believe this but the reason you have chosen to say this.

Dominion_Mirages

Xsorus wrote: »

Its real simple, just like DAOC.

Don't have Mobile PBAE's

How hard is that to do?

This.

And if not - just disable the overlap functionality, i.e. if someone uses eye, player next to him cannot use it. If EoS would have dead range/zone - it would be much weaker and its train use would disappear, imho.

Mazbt

Post your concerns directly to your ep teammates. I think EP has the highest number of destro bomb groups per capita than the other factions.

Publius_Scipio

This being my first MMO, after these past three and a half years, all the threads I have read about balance, all ZOS's patch notes, updates, player suggestions and thoughts etc.... The question that keeps popping up in the back of mind my isn't what can ZOS do to achieve balance, it's can ESO or any large scale MMO ever truly achieve "balance"? Is it or isn't it the nature of an MMO to always for whatever reason continuously require balance updates throughout the game life cycle? Anyone know of an MMO with perfect or near perfect balance?

Vapirko

This has been the meta for a long time. It went away for a little but people are realizing that the eots nerf didn’t do *** and are hopping back on the fotm train as fast as they got off. The only thing that really changes was the addition of multiple unkillable heal tanks accompanying such groups, which is funny because first we needed to nerf damage tanks and now we need to nerf heal tanks. But the fact is, is that zos isn’t doing anything to directly counter group play and that’s the issue. You can nerf any set or ability but something will always be op and abusable in large groups. We need mechanics that directly affect large groups such as scaling damage/heals (the larger the group the less damage done or healing received), or remove aoe caps as some have suggested. Something in that realm needs to be done though or we’ll never see the end to the various ability train metas.

ishilb14_ESO

AD is just not very good at faction stacking. In DC, we have faction stacking down to a science, which is why we own Chalman most of the time. Our faction stack is almost impossible for Dracarys 30man zerg to handle.

Vilestride

ishilb14_ESO wrote: »

AD is just not very good at faction stacking. In DC, we have faction stacking down to a science, which is why we own Chalman most of the time. Our faction stack is almost impossible for Dracarys 30man zerg to handle.

Insightful.

On Topic, Destro Meta is the most balanced meta in this games history and the game will continue to grow at a healthy rate if nothing is changed. Keep it up everyone!