TTK is not the issue, super heals, and unlimited sustain is

Sedare38

Disclaimer: Coming at this from a No-CP perspective, so I imagine CP makes this even worse.

When 1-2 people tower, rock, tree, insert other obstacle humping can outrun, outlast, and outkill 20 people trying to bash them in, then it's not TTK. When a ball group of 12 is getting hammered on by a mish-mash of groups, soloes and whatever that far outnumbers them, the problem is not TTK. The problem is the sheer power of healing, purges, and endless resources. It's the fact that some classes have major burst heals, mitigation, infinite resources, and also can dole out the damage. This leads to the conclusion of one of a few things: class balance, item balance, skill balance, healing balance, and resource management balance--of course most of these all feed on each other--are completely out of whack. All I'm seeing is people being the master of all 4 aspects--mitigation, damage, healing, resource management, and not giving up anything--this is the definition of overpowered/underbalanced.

U31 should be focusing on limiting people from being able to be the master of all things: mitigation, heals, resource management, and damage. This is only multiplied when you add more and more people to a group, i.e. ball groups. They can just steamroll over everyone. Oh wait, but what about the new set that does so much damage when you jump in?. 1. It won't be available in no-proc so it's a non-factor. 2. It doesn't affect healing or resources, and I guarantee the damage will be out healed in a heartbeat by the more organized ball groups or just burst healed by classes with a big heal/rally nearly done.

Outhealing damage and never running out of resources is something that absolutely needs to be looked at not TTK. Time to kill is not an issue unless you, ZOS, hate the gank that much and yet don't realize if the burst doesn't lead to a kill and is mitigated then the ganker usually won't get the kill. They either have to leave and reset, or attempt to make due. To me TTK is nothing but a scapegoat and the real issue is not doing anything about the overhealing and endless resources.

Some solutions, b/c I'm not just going to come with a problem:
First, purge and the morphs should only cleanse siege debuffs, not player based damage effects. This leaves only classes with those cleanses the ability to deal with it. Oh but nightblades and dk's . . . nightblades can cloak away siege dots (usually not always) and dk's can outheal it with dragonblood and mitigation--hell dodge roll the dot already on you, that seems to be a thing.

Second, lightning ballista and meatbag ballistas should have their debuffs improved: have the amount of magicka and stamina drained x3 at the most x1.5 at the least. Have the lighting ballista dmg last 2 more ticks than it does. Let both snares be increased by maybe 10% more. Major defile as a whole needs to get ramped back up to at least 25% (used to be 30 originally) or give it a secondary effect like stam draining that meatbags gives.

Finally, get rid of the damn LOS boxes in keeps. Even if you go back with the enemy behind one LOS issues abound. Get rid of these crutches. These aren't acting like normal trees or rocks. They cause major issues even when you're right on the enemy's butt.

ZOS, if you truly want to help players bust up ball groups then give us (effective) resource draining methods. It's the overhealing and infinite resources. TTK is fine.

And to end this long diatribe: when you create that no-proc, no-cp server, you better damn well have a no-cp with proc server up same day.

BattleAxe

The root of the problem lies in players want to dish out huge amounts of damage and still be able to resist damage. Once people stop complaining about this skill or that set or this class perhaps the game can be played as all games should be for fun.

Stx

Resource draining mechanics are really bad for the game. They are impossible to balance, because by their very nature if they are worth using, everyone will use them.

I don't think sustain is an issue in pvp, because if you try to build without sustain, you will run out of gas fast. I think sustain is pretty well balanced. Healing has been nerfed pretty hard over time and overall seems fine. Maybe there are some specific abilities you could look at, like Rapid regen.

jrgray93

I wear mostly light armor, with three heavy, one of those being Sithis. My heals are all I have. Stam builds done right can down me instantly. Please leave my heals alone.

There are things that need addressing, of course, but I keep seeing calls to nerf healing. Healing is fine, but some builds / classes offer too much mitigation as is. If someone has to spend all day spamming heals, they aren't contributing much. Those players should not, in turn, be able to dish out tons of damage when they're not being focused.

I do not like your proposed purge change, especially if it were to impact PvE, where purge is a necessary trial tool. I also do not like the idea of balancing around ball groups at the cost of individuals. The problem with ball groups instantly healing isn't healing. The problem is ball groups.

Sedare38

jrgray93 wrote: »

I wear mostly light armor, with three heavy, one of those being Sithis. My heals are all I have. Stam builds done right can down me instantly. Please leave my heals alone.

There are things that need addressing, of course, but I keep seeing calls to nerf healing. Healing is fine, but some builds / classes offer too much mitigation as is. If someone has to spend all day spamming heals, they aren't contributing much. Those players should not, in turn, be able to dish out tons of damage when they're not being focused.

I do not like your proposed purge change, especially if it were to impact PvE, where purge is a necessary trial tool. I also do not like the idea of balancing around ball groups at the cost of individuals. The problem with ball groups instantly healing isn't healing. The problem is ball groups.

It's not balancing around ball groups specifically, but they are the known culprits and cleanse costs a lot of magicka and it gets spammed. it's not efficient purge b/c they heal too. This is about resource managemernt being completely upturned by certain class/gear combinations be it 1,2, or 12 people.

Stx

But if someone is building their character for lots of sustain so they can spam purge, why is that an issue? What do you want to nerf? They are already losing out on power or tankiness by building for sustain.

This sounds like you have an issue with coordinated groups and not sustain or healing being overtuned.

DrSlaughtr

Rock hoppers and tower runners are usually necros right now, the master class for mitigation and resource return.

Personally I think pvp is in a great place right now in all areas which is why this pts is concerning. It's a huge step back.

But to the point, purge is expensive. The reason why healers in ball groups can keep spamming it is because they have 3 jobs. Purge. Radiant. Heavy attack. When that's all you gotta do, you'll never run out of mag.

Sedare38

Stx wrote: »

But if someone is building their character for lots of sustain so they can spam purge, why is that an issue? What do you want to nerf? They are already losing out on power or tankiness by building for sustain.

This sounds like you have an issue with coordinated groups and not sustain or healing being overtuned.

What I want to nerf is a single person having the quad-fecta of dmg, tank, healing, and resource management. No 1 build should be able to do it all, but they are hence 1-2 people running 20 around in circles for minutes on end, but sure let's blame TTK as the culprit and give them 11% more mitigation.

red_emu

The issue is that everyone can now be a DD with either plenty of heals or tankiness, to the point where every build is a different flavour of the same thing.

While it may have seemed unbalanced, years ago you had to really build for one of 3 roles in PvP. I remeber trying to beat down a tank with a 20-person group and it took forever. While this may be a little silly, tanks like this dealt laughable damage.

On the other hand, if you wanted to be a DD, you'd deal huge burst damage, nice dots etc, etc but against another DD you're toast.

Unfortunately people started moaning that they can't deal damage as a tank/healer or that they can't out heal incoming damage. Let's face it, ZOS listened and tried to balance it but our characters have been buffed in so many ways now, that it became impossible to balance roles. Now everyone has 25-35k heals over 4 sec without even putting much thought into their build. A few years ago you would need the Templar ultimate to heal you from 1 to 100% in such a short space of time - now every Tom, *** and Harry can just slot vigor/regen and out heal the damage.

All in all the concept is great but due to horrid performance in PvP it's just not working. We're literally unable to use game mechanics to counter people's builds.

You're trying to gap close on someone - not working.
You're trying to fire off your ulti - your character just stands there.
Dodge roll - character just flaps their hands but your stam is draining
Break free - forget it. You need to use. Up 20-30k stam to finally break free even once (for mag chars that is a death sentence)
CC immunity - you can be hard stunned again 1 second after breaking free
Use any ability with range of 7m? - always "out of range" even when you're basically phasing into the enemy character.

Lughlongarm

True. We have super cycles when it comes to balancing. We had several patches nerfing sustain, we had several patches nerfing healing just to boost these several patches after. Biggest issue with sustain is heavy attacking which is in its most forgiven version ever.

We used to be able to interrupt heavy attack while CC immune, then we used to be able Denay the sustain gain by blocking, now I think you get like 50% of the sustain for something like that. This mechanic alone is what draws some fights for being extremely long, puts more weight on burst over constant damage(dots and staff) an making sustain sets just obsolete.

Rhavein

I also think the heals are overpowered, especially the way they can be spammed easily. Make the heals target based like DAoC. Being healer must be super important, not like all DDs slotting rapid/regen and spam it all the way.

Brrrofski

I agree with you that TTK is not an issue for the most part right now and I'm not looking forward to it getting higher.

But the major factor in what you describe, people kiting 20 people and picking them off one by one, is just that. Kiting. Getting line of sight. Outmaneuvering the people chasing.

I don't think it's healing that's the major issue. Take away LOS and that person would die fairly quick.

But to be honest, I see it as clever gameplay. And let's be honest, that group of 20 people chasing them is usually made up of bad players. Decent players know it's a waste of time and leave tower farmers to it. Because they know as soon as they're low, they'll just LOS.

Plus if you take some of those things away, it punishes solo and small group players. The larger groups can assign people skills or sets to bring those things to the group, while a solo or smaller group won't be able to run dedicated skills or sets for unique things

Blobsky

I don't think overhealing is an issue in no-cp, except where a mega Zerg is around (in which case it's unavoidable). I also personally don't think TTK is at all an issue outside of a few limited gank builds, but I have almost 700 days PvP game time so have a lot of experience.

Sustain is a different story and I totally agree that it's the thing to change RATHER THAN mitigation. However, we have to ensure the PvE isn't nerfed in the process else they will be liable to complain.

I consistently propose returning to the sustain limits from pre patch 1.5. During those patches, heavy attacks were interruptable. This massively reduced the ability to weave heavy attacks to sustain, preventing huge resource returns that are currently very easy to obtain (for example, pretty much every stamina build gets up to 50% of their sustain from this currently - it's what makes them overperforms so much currently)

As a result, people had a choice either to:

(1) Build a lot more sustain into their build through Regen sets, glyphs etc BUT then lack damage to kill anyone AND lack the spd/wpd to heal with (very few chose this); or

(2) Sacrifice some sustain to ensure they still had enough damage to kill - probably 95%+ of people did this.

In short, almost everybody chose option 2 because if they did not, they lacked healing and damage so would die anyway. By choosing option 2, NOBODY had infinite sustain and everybody had to manage resources extremely carefully and nobody survived forever.

I propose making heavy attacks interruptable again AND making interrupts not count as a "crowd control" to give free CC immunity" (this also previously existed and removing it was the reason magsorc became so strong - they can safely rely on dark deal without fear of interrupt). This would limit sustain in PvP to a point where people cannot survive forever, without affecting PvE.

Important note though - many people are far better at the game than back in the early days of the game, so there will always be some very skilled players who are difficult to kill. Newer players need to be more accepting and strive to learn, rather than instantly blame cheating or the game. I intend to make a series of guides next month that can hopefully help a bit.

Dovahmiim

"When 1-2 people tower, rock, tree, insert other obstacle humping can outrun, outlast, and outkill 20 people trying to bash them in, then it's not TTK." correct. All 20 of those chasing have to be extremely low skill players.

Numbers should never fully determine the outcome of fights, that would destroy ESO PvP. Skill and knowledge of mechanics should always be the deciding factor, although admittedly certain classes are a bit of a carry atm, which is its own problem (lul stamblade).

Treeshka

I think making the Radiating Regeneration not stack and turning Purge ability to a synergy activated ability, will fix some of these problems. Because spamming Purge in its current state renders most of the siege weapons useless and stacking heals makes players nearly invincible.

Wuuffyy

Sedare38 wrote: »

Stx wrote: »

But if someone is building their character for lots of sustain so they can spam purge, why is that an issue? What do you want to nerf? They are already losing out on power or tankiness by building for sustain.

This sounds like you have an issue with coordinated groups and not sustain or healing being overtuned.

What I want to nerf is a single person having the quad-fecta of dmg, tank, healing, and resource management. No 1 build should be able to do it all, but they are hence 1-2 people running 20 around in circles for minutes on end, but sure let's blame TTK as the culprit and give them 11% more mitigation.

25% more than now, actually. Battle spirit is total mit not just percentage mit.

Fawn4287

High damage, high regen and high healing is the most fun, rewarding and engaging gameplay, slow tanky metas are beyond boring. I remember running around with fury, balorgh, nma and brp backbar (with 6% damage and mitigation not major protection) and still barely having enough damage to burst every second player before CP 2.0, now I can kite bad zerglings through caltrops whilst keeping blastblones or DK dots up in a tower, turn around dawnbreaker/ leap and kill 3 people whilst being essentially having to roll dodge and sprint down to 0 stats and nuked for making one wrong move. I love how I see good 1vX clips from every class this patch and huge build variety. Next update will be back to fairly big groups being needed to even kill 1 thumbed meta build player.

xDeusEJRx

Lots of people talk about healing being some issues in pvp and in all honesty, nerfing healing would really gimp pvp in lots of ways. No matter what play style you are nerfing healing will hit every build in pvp. Considering damage is high, if healing was nerfed by say 20% and burst heals would hit a max of say 5k, what happens when you have two or three people using dizzy swings for 5k? There's no chance you can outheal that because they'll just outdamage your heals at any given moment. And if you turn that 1v3 into 1v5 or more, you basically drop dead without even getting a chance to do anything. And what happens if heals are unreliable? People resort to building tanky for survivability and it resorts in tank meta. Which is not good for obvious reasons. You need to look at why people can hybrid tank dps in PvP. It's because people get so much free damage in this game and they can just build tanky since most of their build damage comes from modifiers like the free 1k damage we got. Extra build damage means you rely less on stacking damage as you did pre-flames of ambition and therefore you can focus somewhere else(tankiness and sustain). You don't have to build into healing since damage values buffs healing so just upping damage increases your healing. If you really wanted to tone it down, you'd have to roll back all that free damage zos gave us that brought us here to begin with

DrSlaughtr

I think TTK, sustain, and healing in PVP are the best they've been in years. Are there some classes that can do it all? Yes. Warden and Necro. So they're harder to kill. Don't really run out if resources. And drain poisons do diddly.

But that's why you have sorcs and NBs who can burst them down. Maybe not kill them (they're hard) but get them down low enough the rest of the group can take them out.

Which is exactly why we shouldn't kill direct damage builds.

Xahran

For Akatosh's sake you are arguing againt ball groups and 1vXers at the same time? Arguing about tankness, sustain and healing without mentioning the ridiculous damage everyone and their grandmas have right now?

Why, the hell, are people arguing about people grouping in a damn war? Of course bigger, more organized groups should win wars and while I fell a victim to a couple of ball groups I just admit they had the better group and move on. I know how it feels. It feels impossible to fight against, but that's Cyrodiil. You can't stop people from grouping and being organized no matter how much you nerf them. 5 players should always be better than 1 and 5 organized and skilled players should always be better than a bunch of unorganized undergeared hillbillies.

Also no matter how much you smack the nerf hammer, people will always try to find the best, most efficient, combination of damage, sustain and survivability and if they can't have that combination then they will stick to a group so they can mitigate some of their weaknesses, making the ball groups people hate so much for some reason. You can't gut sustain because let's face it most of us don't want to roleplay as an old geezer who needs a 5 min rest after 5 swings. Same for tankiness, again people who build tanky will always build tanky, the issue lies not in them being tanky but them having ridiculous damage while doing it. Maybe, just maybe, tankiness isn't the problem here? Nerf damage and you will force their hands to either sacrifice their tankiness to keep their damage or sacrifice their damage to retain their tankiness and I assure you most of the playerbase would choose the first option because most of us don't like the feeling of using pillows as swords.

Finally, people will use los, because it is your only defense when outnumbered, not tankiness, not sustain, but that tree over there. I, again, fell victim to 1vXers multiple times but I admit their skill and sheer will to be able to manage the pressure of a bunch of players, all of them at the same time, something I can't fathom to deal with any time soon.

TLDR; No matter how much you swing the hammer, people will adapt and retain the golden pvp trinity of sustain, dmg and tankiness, also you may as well turn Cyro into a desert and people will hide behind cacti. Ball groups? I don't know how you deal with ball groups. Maybe debuff their characters with Covid if they don't keep with social distancing. I don't know man but for a start let's nerf necros, specially stamnecros

Biro123

Sedare38 wrote: »

All I'm seeing is people being the master of all 4 aspects--mitigation, damage, healing, resource management, and not giving up anything--this is the definition of overpowered/underbalanced.

I have mixed views on this. It seems you are asking for the trinity of PVE roles to apply to PVP. That's a bad move imho. One of the main attractions of ESO PVP to me is that I can be self-reliant. I can play ungrouped and heal myself when I need healing, kill stuff when I need to kill stuff and not disintegrate when someone looks menacingly in my direction.

The alternative to this is everybody having to group - and the only viable solo playstyle being nightblade ganking or high-speed ranged damage-dealers.

It *should* be imho (and is to an extent) a sliding scale between the three roles.. A bit like that triangle in your character-creation where you choose your body shape - thin/fat/muscular or whatever it is - and position a dot somewhere in that triangle.
But there are some combinations of gear/classes that can give you more overall.
For example my no-cp stamden uses a sustain 5-piece and a defence 5-piece (Pariah/Eternal Vigor) - with weapon damage coming purely from jewelry enchants, and pen from sharpend mauls(an oxymoron).

Defence-wise it probably isn't the best combo(but it is good), since when under pressure, Pariah kicks in, but EV turns off - so I do run out of resources if I can't heal back up to 50% fast - but alongside the classes other abilities, it makes him very tanky (for a while). The strength comes from Warden's abilities though.. Netch, Trellis(via passives) and heavy armour passive all giving stam recov while blocking - alongside having a heal that costs magica. Mag sustain while blocking from trellis/heavy armour/eternal vigor letting me spam that mag-heal while blocking (with the occasional Vigor. I definitely can't sustain it for ever, when focused(maybe 6-10 seconds in the open), but los gives a couple of seconds breather to heal up and recover some resources. What kills me is running out of stam.
I haven't unlocked the SnB ulti yet, but suspect if I had, this would be another great way to recover resources while blocking allowing for much longer sustain..

Then there's offence.. My offensive stats aren't great - but they can kill people who are not paying attention - or when combined with other friendlies. What it's missing is that one monster set - Balorgh.. The amount of offensive stats that 2-piece adds to your burst is obscene. and this is where you see 'tanks' doing damage.. Especially when co-ordinating their balorgh-fuelled ulti-dump with a friend.

So I would kind of agree that some classes/builds can score maybe (out of 10) tankiness:8, sustain: 7, healing: 8, damage: 7, and that the scaling is weird in that if I wanted t push, say damage up to a 10, my tankiness and sustain would probably drop to 3. But isn't this the essences of good buildcrafting? being able to come up with good numbers in all those fields? Or making the choice to pump some at the expense of others?

I do worry that the battle-spirit changes would have 2 impacts to my current setup (and probably many other players)
1. I would become almost unkillable.. I wouldn't have to spam as many heals/would be able to drop block more allowing for stam recov ticks
2. I wouldn't be able to kill anyone else..
3. I'd probably switch to an offence set, because I don't want to be an unthreatening tank..

Kind of ironic that a patch to reduce TTK would result in me building for more damage!

Twohothardware

The number one thing that makes players hard to kill is almost every one of them has sword and board back bar. Blocking takes whatever damage you deal down next to nothing. And for whatever dumb reason they added block cost reduction to medium armor so you can be tanky with higher damage and sustain.

Blobsky

Twohothardware wrote: »

The number one thing that makes players hard to kill is almost every one of them has sword and board back bar. Blocking takes whatever damage you deal down next to nothing. And for whatever dumb reason they added block cost reduction to medium armor so you can be tanky with higher damage and sustain.

Said by a true dodgeroll build.

Block is the "only" way to survive on some classes - and knowing when to both block or dodge is a large part of the skill in ESO.

Twohothardware

Blobsky wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

The number one thing that makes players hard to kill is almost every one of them has sword and board back bar. Blocking takes whatever damage you deal down next to nothing. And for whatever dumb reason they added block cost reduction to medium armor so you can be tanky with higher damage and sustain.

Said by a true dodgeroll build.

Block is the "only" way to survive on some classes - and knowing when to both block or dodge is a large part of the skill in ESO.

The reduced cost for blocking in medium needs to be done away with. You already get reduced cost for dodge roll.

Blobsky

Twohothardware wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

The number one thing that makes players hard to kill is almost every one of them has sword and board back bar. Blocking takes whatever damage you deal down next to nothing. And for whatever dumb reason they added block cost reduction to medium armor so you can be tanky with higher damage and sustain.

Said by a true dodgeroll build.

Block is the "only" way to survive on some classes - and knowing when to both block or dodge is a large part of the skill in ESO.

The reduced cost for blocking in medium needs to be done away with. You already get reduced cost for dodge roll.

And well fitted outweighs sturdy for sustain return (due to additional sprint reduction). It all balances out.

Besides, medium overperforming is a separate story to block overperforming - but elder stamina online and all.

Girl_Number8

I completely disagree.

Organized groups are just that organized. They took the time to adjust their builds to support and help each other (non-greedy builds). They coordinate and work together.

I see no reason why a Zerg of unorganized players should be successful against such a group.

Zerglings are usually just PvPing the lazy way. Organized PvP groups are playing the smart way....

Same with a 1 v X or 3 v X you build smarter....and play smarter too

That shouldn’t be punished by nerfs

Blobsky

If the battle spirit change is not reverted, "nobody" will be successful as nobody will die...

master_vanargand

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

I completely disagree.

Organized groups are just that organized. They took the time to adjust their builds to support and help each other (non-greedy builds). They coordinate and work together.

I see no reason why a Zerg of unorganized players should be successful against such a group.

Zerglings are usually just PvPing the lazy way. Organized PvP groups are playing the smart way....

Same with a 1 v X or 3 v X you build smarter....and play smarter too

That shouldn’t be punished by nerfs

Is it smart to stack healing?
I don't think so.
It's just breaking the game balance.
At least it's not fun at all.

xDeusEJRx

master_vanargand wrote: »

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

I completely disagree.

Organized groups are just that organized. They took the time to adjust their builds to support and help each other (non-greedy builds). They coordinate and work together.

I see no reason why a Zerg of unorganized players should be successful against such a group.

Zerglings are usually just PvPing the lazy way. Organized PvP groups are playing the smart way....

Same with a 1 v X or 3 v X you build smarter....and play smarter too

That shouldn’t be punished by nerfs

Is it smart to stack healing?
I don't think so.
It's just breaking the game balance.
At least it's not fun at all.

The same argument can be said about mass grouping. Entire faction pushing 1 direction isn't really smart playing, meanwhile running group oriented abilities and buffs on the otherhand is. Just because people are running in a zerg but have no coordination doesn't make it a smart playstyle, meanwhile those people are running buffs/abilities that help make the group more effective, which I would argue is a smart way of playing. I'd rather have the stam warden running dawnbreaker and healing ult backbar vs a DB/SnB combo that is purely solo-focused.
If working together and propping each other up is "breaking the game balance" why does that not apply to a zerg of 20+ people who don't run in that same playstyle. I mean they very well could as well

master_vanargand

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

I completely disagree.

Organized groups are just that organized. They took the time to adjust their builds to support and help each other (non-greedy builds). They coordinate and work together.

I see no reason why a Zerg of unorganized players should be successful against such a group.

Zerglings are usually just PvPing the lazy way. Organized PvP groups are playing the smart way....

Same with a 1 v X or 3 v X you build smarter....and play smarter too

That shouldn’t be punished by nerfs

Is it smart to stack healing?
I don't think so.
It's just breaking the game balance.
At least it's not fun at all.

The same argument can be said about mass grouping. Entire faction pushing 1 direction isn't really smart playing, meanwhile running group oriented abilities and buffs on the otherhand is. Just because people are running in a zerg but have no coordination doesn't make it a smart playstyle, meanwhile those people are running buffs/abilities that help make the group more effective, which I would argue is a smart way of playing. I'd rather have the stam warden running dawnbreaker and healing ult backbar vs a DB/SnB combo that is purely solo-focused.
If working together and propping each other up is "breaking the game balance" why does that not apply to a zerg of 20+ people who don't run in that same playstyle. I mean they very well could as well

Accumulating healing and becoming immortal is destroying the game balance.
For example, if you have immortal Ballgroups in FPS, it's a garbage game.
Players must die in PvP games.

Extinct_Solo_Player

Sedare38 wrote: »

Disclaimer: Coming at this from a No-CP perspective, so I imagine CP makes this even worse.

When 1-2 people tower, rock, tree, insert other obstacle humping can outrun, outlast, and outkill 20 people trying to bash them in, then it's not TTK. When a ball group of 12 is getting hammered on by a mish-mash of groups, soloes and whatever that far outnumbers them, the problem is not TTK. The problem is the sheer power of healing, purges, and endless resources. It's the fact that some classes have major burst heals, mitigation, infinite resources, and also can dole out the damage. This leads to the conclusion of one of a few things: class balance, item balance, skill balance, healing balance, and resource management balance--of course most of these all feed on each other--are completely out of whack. All I'm seeing is people being the master of all 4 aspects--mitigation, damage, healing, resource management, and not giving up anything--this is the definition of overpowered/underbalanced.

U31 should be focusing on limiting people from being able to be the master of all things: mitigation, heals, resource management, and damage. This is only multiplied when you add more and more people to a group, i.e. ball groups. They can just steamroll over everyone. Oh wait, but what about the new set that does so much damage when you jump in?. 1. It won't be available in no-proc so it's a non-factor. 2. It doesn't affect healing or resources, and I guarantee the damage will be out healed in a heartbeat by the more organized ball groups or just burst healed by classes with a big heal/rally nearly done.

Outhealing damage and never running out of resources is something that absolutely needs to be looked at not TTK. Time to kill is not an issue unless you, ZOS, hate the gank that much and yet don't realize if the burst doesn't lead to a kill and is mitigated then the ganker usually won't get the kill. They either have to leave and reset, or attempt to make due. To me TTK is nothing but a scapegoat and the real issue is not doing anything about the overhealing and endless resources.

Some solutions, b/c I'm not just going to come with a problem:
First, purge and the morphs should only cleanse siege debuffs, not player based damage effects. This leaves only classes with those cleanses the ability to deal with it. Oh but nightblades and dk's . . . nightblades can cloak away siege dots (usually not always) and dk's can outheal it with dragonblood and mitigation--hell dodge roll the dot already on you, that seems to be a thing.

Second, lightning ballista and meatbag ballistas should have their debuffs improved: have the amount of magicka and stamina drained x3 at the most x1.5 at the least. Have the lighting ballista dmg last 2 more ticks than it does. Let both snares be increased by maybe 10% more. Major defile as a whole needs to get ramped back up to at least 25% (used to be 30 originally) or give it a secondary effect like stam draining that meatbags gives.

Finally, get rid of the damn LOS boxes in keeps. Even if you go back with the enemy behind one LOS issues abound. Get rid of these crutches. These aren't acting like normal trees or rocks. They cause major issues even when you're right on the enemy's butt.

ZOS, if you truly want to help players bust up ball groups then give us (effective) resource draining methods. It's the overhealing and infinite resources. TTK is fine.

And to end this long diatribe: when you create that no-proc, no-cp server, you better damn well have a no-cp with proc server up same day.

revert server side changes and then you can actually hit people going around corners in keeps and towers, that's the problem not infinite sustain as that is not really a thing if you and your group have enough damage output.