Vicious Death the best anti zerg set in ESO, that no one cares about.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

I simply do not understand. Vicious Death is the most underrated anti zerg set in the game, and yet so few players that are magicka use it or even care about it. This set requires Some skill to use and little finesse but it PUNISHES ball groups and especially faction zergs. Yes i understand it requires a kill to proc the Dmg but i cant tell you how many groups and faction zergs have lost a battle because i killed 1 lowbie who was stacked up to a bunch of stronger players in my destro and it caused a chain reaction and killed everyone. Not even super tanky people can survive 5 plus VD procs hitting them at once. And yet for all its power and majesty, this set is shunned by the ignorance of 1vX kids and because 1vX kids control the eso community, most think this set is bad. its really sad that this timeless set isnt used more pvp play. Once in patches long past, this set was the BANE of PuG groups and even the most Powerful DC guild of its day was FORCED to all wear the phoenix set because it would incinerate there entire stack. Atleast the bomb blades still use it though, so there is still hope.

Rohamad_Ali

CyrusArya

Its not shunned by ignorance, your half baked conclusions are whats ignorant. Plenty of small scalers use VD once the groups get big enough. But you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding for how small scale works so let me educate you. Small scale in general and 1vX in particular is by nature a more spread out and single target oriented play style. Ergo, the effectiveness of VD is greatly diminished. No group of 4 is running around consistently killing 20 stacked zerglings to get the most out of the set. The MO is not to huddle on crown and stack aoes with copious group support, the scenario where VD shines. Its to engage in outnumbered rights and win through tactile use of terrain and precise, targeted, burst damage. Furthermore, 1vXers are probably not likely to run a set that is gonna gimp them in 1v1 situations. When you never play outside group support however, and can stack with other VD users, the set is a lot more appealing.

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I simply do not understand.

Hope you understand a bit better now. Its not rocket science.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

CyrusArya wrote: »

Its not shunned by ignorance, your half baked conclusions are whats ignorant. Plenty of small scalers use VD once the groups get big enough. But you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding for how small scale works so let me educate you. Small scale in general and 1vX in particular is by nature a more spread out and single target oriented play style. Ergo, the effectiveness of VD is greatly diminished. No group of 4 is running around consistently killing 20 stacked zerglings to get the most out of the set. The MO is not to huddle on crown and stack aoes with copious group support, the scenario where VD shines. Its to engage in outnumbered rights and win through tactile use of terrain and precise, targeted, burst damage. Furthermore, 1vXers are probably not likely to run a set that is gonna gimp them in 1v1 situations. When you never play outside group support however, and can stack with other VD users, the set is a lot more appealing.

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I simply do not understand.

Hope you understand a bit better now. Its not rocket science.

okay arya, Im not taking about using VD to 1vX, the only people who really use VD to 1v X are Bomb blades, i understand if a small man group has to spread out or LOS to get more favorable position, VD aint the best. However Im talking about when a group of 4 or so attacks a stacked group'd thats in a breach/choke or close together, its a good idea to have atleast 1 guy with VD , if the small man grp has good single target dps and manage to kill a guy in the enemy stack while the Friendly VD user is using destro or some aoe, that massive burst of dmg will kill others and if there are more than 3-4 VD procs in a tight spot not even earthgore will save that stack.

P.S. i do understand small scale , that comment was very toxic.

CyrusArya

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

okay arya, Im not taking about using VD to 1vX, the only people who really use VD to 1v X are Bomb blades, i understand if a small man group has to spread out or LOS to get more favorable position, VD aint the best. However Im talking about when a group of 4 or so attacks a stacked group'd thats in a breach/choke or close together, its a good idea to have atleast 1 guy with VD , if the small man grp has good single target dps and manage to kill a guy in the enemy stack while the Friendly VD user is using destro or some aoe, that massive burst of dmg will kill others and if there are more than 3-4 VD procs in a tight spot not even earthgore will save that stack.

P.S. i do understand small scale , that comment was very toxic.

Neither am I. Review the wording of your post. If VD is not ideal for 1vX “kids”, then why are they ignorant for not using it and why is it their responsibility to promote the set? My point was that it is not rejected and that your argument for why it’s not more widely used makes no sense. No one knowledgeable denies the strengths of the set. Nothing toxic about that. If you can’t handle an abrasive response to an obviously provocative and abrasive post, then don’t post deragatory and illogical arguements in public forums.

Juhasow

Have You ever heared about AoE caps , Earthgore and high health zergs meta and few other things coinnected to this subject ? It's easier to wipe 4 players with VD then 40.

Speed_Kills

VD lost a lot of appeal after it stopped critting.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

I humbly request the opinion of a notable bomb blade.

Publius_Scipio

Speed_Kills wrote: »

VD lost a lot of appeal after it stopped critting.

Translation:

The meta-obsessed stopped using it because it was no longer as strong as their "op" hearts desired it to be. The conductor signaled the engineer, and the meta train pulled away from the VD Station chugging along to the next stop.

TBois

VD is used in some top end raids, but the majority of the eso community seems to follow the meta set by 1vx videos and builds. I believe this has more to do with the type of videos that seem fun and easily understandable. Raid v raid videos are difficult to understand for someone who isnt extreemely familiar with the game, and tbh raid gameplay is the most boring it's ever been in eso. This is why I see VD isn't adopted by more. It has nothing to do with people trashing on the set for gameplay styles that the set isn't suited for.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

When this set first came out in patches past, it cause an extinction event for guilds that invited from zone chat.

kyle.wilson

Most ball groups are build around NB's that wear this set.
You wont get many kills with this in an organized group, it's main use is bombing groups of pugs.

This is another thing ZOS added to fight large group's and all it did was help ball groups more.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

keep those Poor PuGs away from VD, or they may explode!

Deep_01

I have gold VD gear ready in bank. However, I never had a successful bomb or chain-kill with it on magsorc. L-ing2p magblade atm.

NyassaV

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I humbly request the opinion of a notable bomb blade.

I'm not a bomblade... But have done it when my group asks me too. VD is an awesome thing to have with you if you and like 3 other people are fighting zergs. I will almost never wear it as a primary set. With the constant nerfs to Eye of the storm it makes bombing harder and harder. I'm not that good at it to begin with

zyk

VD is usually only consistently effective when used as part of a full burst build. This kind of build severely limits options open world in campaigns with decent players.

Completely solo, it's only going to be effective when bombing unsuspecting flag/transit stacks or pugs which gets old very fast and isn't useful. While surfing, in big keep conflicts and in lane chokes, you'll find your moments and can be effective, but again, you're pigeonholed which can be boring. It's not going to be a game changer against overwhelming faction stacks. You'll get your 5-15 kills and they'll shrug it off and rez.

It's still incredibly effective as part any group that kites to chokes or that tower farms and is still widely used by groups that do that against decent numbers.

Goshua

Requiring a KB for some builds makes it less than favorable for a start and limited to the folk who run with enough dps or have the dps themselves to get the targets towards execute range. Bit like proxy is at the moment.

Sixty5

I run it on a Magblade and it does its job alright.

About the only time I've really got any nice chain kills was during the IC event, but honestly I could have just alternated between Cloak and Impale and had the same level of effectiveness vs the group I was going after.

The biggest issue with the set is that you need to get the first couple of kills to get it going, and a lot of the time, that can be difficult to do

Xsorus

See the problem is they nerfed Prox Det and made VD no longer crit

When they did that they basically removed any chance of a player killing a Ball Group who stacked up

Now add in other changes like Earthgore and such and you have even less chance of getting kills

So what was once a set that you could use to punish Ball Groups now only gets used by Ball Groups because they just run people with it cause who cares if that person sucks at other things...He's got 23 other people backing him up.

Rohamad_Ali

Xsorus wrote: »

See the problem is they nerfed Prox Det and made VD no longer crit

When they did that they basically removed any chance of a player killing a Ball Group who stacked up

Now add in other changes like Earthgore and such and you have even less chance of getting kills

So what was once a set that you could use to punish Ball Groups now only gets used by Ball Groups because they just run people with it cause who cares if that person sucks at other things...He's got 23 other people backing him up.

This is truth of VD now . I've run VD on destro staff for ball groups after the nerfs were put in place . Was not my favorite playstyle and did not like it too much so dropped Magblade awhile . Easier to solo gank bomb smaller groups of 8 or less now then ball group raids with Templar heals and cleanses spam . VD and prox Det was seen as too op when VD was brought into game and @Sypher started posting his drop on front door bomblade videos which were hilarious but big raid tears drowned Wrobel into submission . I miss first month VD patch ... So fun and made ball groups really spread out for once .

arkansas_ESO

It's range got nerfed and it got made unable to crit during the proc set nerfs. That, along with group healing and mitigation becoming higher (Earthgore, Troll King, Warden's frost ult, etc.) made it harder to take apart a ball group and made VD less appealing as a result.

Ixtyr

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I humbly request the opinion of a notable bomb blade.

Fairly notable bombblade here.

Vicious Death is a cancer that needs to be removed from the game. I use it, I use it effectively, and it's never had the desired effect that the devs wanted it to have.

Vicious Death was introduced with the goal of forcing groups to spread out more to avoid its potency. This never happened. What did happen was players became so fearful of being around one group of friendly players that they started running in even bigger groups, because AoE Caps and the physically limited range of the set procs made it possible for 20-man Group #1 to get blown up, but less likely for 20-man Group #1 AND 20-man Group #2 to both be blown up by the same bomber(s) - meaning strength in numbers was magnified, and concentrating your gloryzergs together was even more rewarding.

And that was back when we just had to deal with Tether Bombers.

ZOS then added Eye of the Flame into the equation, making it significantly more forgiving and easier to time a decent bomb and get kills. This was offset slightly by the nerfed range and, later, removal of crits, for that proc, but it's still a grossly overutilized skill and set combo that, together with Negates, have become the entire backbone of organized group PvP in this game for the past year. Destro VD bombs and bombers like myself who use them are more to blame than anything (aside from Wrobel) for the complete and utter lack of Ultimate diversification in group combat.

I could get into a full explanation of why this set is terrible, but it'd take me quite some time to type and involve a lot of in-depth discussion around more issues than just the existence of the set itself in a vacuum. And it's 2am and I'm sleepy and don't care enough to explain it right now. So what I will say is this:

As utterly cancerous as this set is, it's also extremely potent on some non-bomber magicka builds. We've tested it heavily in recent patches in VE and SOS, even without the 5-set proc, the 2-4 set bonuses perform as good if not better than most other damage-oriented 4-sets that would be used as a secondary set in its place. When you factor in the possibility of getting a proc from the 5-set, it becomes almost a no-brainer to put more players on this set if you run an organized group that's fairly large in size (16-24+) - especially Sorcs, who get tons of free killing blows from Curse and Fury procs.

Until ZOS smartens up and just removes it, and then fixes the 7483936262738493627284949263 other issues PvP faces, if you find yourself capable of running the set without putting yourself at a disadvantage (see Arya's comments above about true 1vX builds vs zerg-surfing, both of which are perfectly acceptable playstyles in my opinion, by the way), then by all means, run it. It's a strong set, if not quite as strong as it once was, and I know plenty of people who use it, and many of them are not dedicated bombers like me.

Kram8ion

I wear it on occasion when being zerged but there's just too much lag in large groups now ( on console anyway)and only getting a couple of successful scenarios in a whole game session doesn't warrant regular use for me

CatchMeTrolling

You mention 1vx, let's take into consideration that most people that's trying to 1vx play stamina builds. Also vd isn't as great as it once was considering they nerfed proxy, range and crit. It's honestly a small group set at best, I don't think I would use it solo anymore unless I'm tower farming.

A_G_G_R_O

CyrusArya wrote: »

Its not shunned by ignorance, your half baked conclusions are whats ignorant. Plenty of small scalers use VD once the groups get big enough. But you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding for how small scale works so let me educate you. Small scale in general and 1vX in particular is by nature a more spread out and single target oriented play style. Ergo, the effectiveness of VD is greatly diminished. No group of 4 is running around consistently killing 20 stacked zerglings to get the most out of the set. The MO is not to huddle on crown and stack aoes with copious group support, the scenario where VD shines. Its to engage in outnumbered rights and win through tactile use of terrain and precise, targeted, burst damage. Furthermore, 1vXers are probably not likely to run a set that is gonna gimp them in 1v1 situations. When you never play outside group support however, and can stack with other VD users, the set is a lot more appealing.

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I simply do not understand.

Hope you understand a bit better now. Its not rocket science.

Literally incap killers blading people on forums right here.

VaranisArano

VD is excellent versus a whole bunch of disorganized players, on a bomber, or on a whole bunch of players who can't move out of a choke point or a keep's flags. Its also pretty awesome within a organized raid on the player who runs the skills that kill a bunch of people, such as executes or the destro ulti train.

JackDaniell

I use VD on magplar, much bomb but can be quite frail if you dont get the kills. Really only effective againt larger groups tho, very hard to fight 3 good players with VD on.

Speed_Kills

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Speed_Kills wrote: »

VD lost a lot of appeal after it stopped critting.

Translation:

The meta-obsessed stopped using it because it was no longer as strong as their "op" hearts desired it to be. The conductor signaled the engineer, and the meta train pulled away from the VD Station chugging along to the next stop.

@Publius_Scipio It has nothing to do with being meta-obsessed. When something stops being effective, you adapt and find something that is effective.... or you can lose fights that you should win and blame the meta.

geonsocal

VD and siege weapons are a marriage made in oblivion...

NightbladeMechanics

geonsocal wrote: »

VD and siege weapons are a marriage made in oblivion...

Don’t forget Valkyn.

Ary with the /thread

Kaspar

It only works if you manage to have a killing blow.