Occasional PvPer wants to know: What Does Dark Convergence Look Like?

Aca2017

So, was in Cyrodiil for the first time since Waking Flame arrived, and started experiencing something new. I PvP only intermittently (principally to level the associated skill lines... slowly)... and as a casual PvPer, this new thing came as an unpleasant surprise.

In mass combat, a glowing purple bubble would appear on the ground (looked like a glowing iridescent sphere or orb, partially intersecting the ground); upon appearance, my character and other friendlies would be pulled to it (forming a clump of characters), and after a few seconds it would detonate, basically one-shotting every character that was unable to escape.

Is this the "Dark Convergence" 5-piece proc in operation?

(Oddly, searching the web for terms like "purple orb pull stun explode" finds nothing at the moment, but there are so many threads on Dark Convergence in this forum, and the description of the proc is so evocative of what I was seeing, that I am guessing the answer is: Yes, this is Dark Convergence in action. Feel free to direct me to videos, or better search terms.)

Some things about this confuse me, based on my experience and looking at the documentation:

- 1 second before the pull seems about right... short enough that, given the lag typical in mass combat situations (involving dozens of players on each side), evading the pull and proactively negating the snare was basically impossible; seriously, why bother having a delay at all?
- evasion after the pull often required repeated attempts to "break free"... is this the "30% snare" effect in operation, or just lag? Either way (snare, lag, or both) this doesn't seem to work very well: 5+ dodge/break free attempts in rapid succession were often ineffective, the end result was complete loss of control over my character, followed by death
- apparently successful evasion (i.e. after successful break free), achieving substantial distance from the effect before detonation, was indeed only partially/intermittently successful, severe damage or death ensued even then... lag?
- it seemed possible to deliver it with a siege weapon; do siege weapons "leave an effect on the ground", consistent with triggering Dark Convergence? Is it really going to be viable for procs like this to operate through siege weapons?
- the effect could one-shot me at the center of the effect, at full (35K) health and in "PvP gear" (heavy armor, impenetrable trait, etc)... is this consistent with the "1092 magic damage" documented?
- Does the detonation crit? Does the crit chance/crit damage operate off of the originating character's stats? Even with siege weapons?

Anyway, I agree this seems OP, and generally counterproductive. During my first (and so far only) PvP session since introduction of this, the flow of these purple wads of crud was literally continuous, especially in space-constrained situations (i.e. where both sides were concentrated at a chokepoint, like a gate or the main door of an outpost/keep, and remaining proactively in continuous motion to compensate for lag was difficult... perhaps only coincidentally these are also the situation in which there are generally lots of siege weapons operating). As I say, much of the time, the result was complete loss of control of my character (snare effect? lag?), followed by death. Begs the question: why? Isn't PvP sufficiently annoying, and sufficiently untenable for performance reasons, already? You are going to add an even more annoying effect, seemingly perfectly tuned to make the disruptive effects of lag even more severe?

Seems like THE dominant effect in PvP at the moment. I suppose everyone will need to equip this set, we will have no practical choice (or... suffer through however much PvP is required to finish maxing the Alliance War skill line(s)... then leave, and never touch PvP ever again, regardless of the inducement).

Thanks for any help you can provide.

ResidentContrarian

It looks poorly telegraphed, and you really only can tell in a big fight because you were pulled.

That is why players, even ones that aren't grouped, don't like the set. Also for extra cheese, if someone has chaosball and that set on, it's impossible to see the effect if you are pulled in either that area or others are laying attacks there.

The effects of these new sets need to be more prominent. Since I avoid damage by habit and roll a lot (even on mag builds), I avoid it nearly every time.

But not everyone has a build capable of so much rolling or blocking, and the game should be balanced not on me, but on the masses.

It's also true that the time to counter the set is too low, and players should probably have to at least investing in their own snares if they want to run the set to make it more fair if they won;t give 1-2 seconds more to counter IMO.

divnyi

It looks like big purple ball.

You are correct, it is often impossible to dodge the pull just because the range is stupidly long - you will often be pulled after roll dodge, so probably the best you can do is to start healing before you are pulled.

The pull itself should stun you for 1s only. If you struggle breaking from it, maybe just wait the duration? Didn't yet try not to break but it looks like this can be the downside of the set - it is downside of pullchains skill after all, you give stunimmune for free. In this case not 100% free, because they added 1s stun after pull, so it is better that any pullchain skill now (which is stupid, they should buff skills then).

Then, I advice you to always roll out of the center. Because like 90% of the time convergence is either caltrops, or sorc mines. 10% it's harmony necro graveyard.

Generally, 1 roll is required to escape the 3m radius centre blast. This is the one that hits hard and scales with number of players in it. You will still be in bigger radius after first roll, and if it was coordinated attack, you might even still be in negate. But second roll is more often than not, not needed and you can heal instead.

Vevvev

Kwoung

The set is currently bugged, or at least seems to be. It is pulling from WAY outside its range, unless it was intended to be a 20-30m radius and not 8m like everything else.

Aca2017

The screenshots are very helpful. I agree, I was experiencing the Dark Convergence proc.

Next time I PvP, I will try healing when pulled (though lag also obfuscates this... lost count of the times I have healed repeatedly, without any effect on my health, and died second later without anyone apparently touching me... I have always assumed I was already dead and my game client had simply not caught up yet), proactively evading more, and always rolling away after the pull rather than trying to break free and fleeing.

Ecfigies

ZOS has a manner of releasing poor designed gear that astonish me.

The title it's not misleading, that's really what he does in the video.

https://youtu.be/eLigDlh9EWg