What in the heck happened to PvP in this game?

schmistertyler

Me and 5 friends recently came to ESO been playing for about 1-2 months now. Pretty geared-up mythics, sets, monster helms ETC. We all came back with the intentions of PvP because we play a lot of Dark Age of Camelot but this just feels awful. Why in the heck is everyone so tanky? This seems wildley unbalanced I used to have fun ganking in this game with my friends but now everyone and their brother is a ridiculous meat shield. You got guys running around in cyrodill who have 10 people attacking them consistently and cant even get below 70% health are you kidding me???? But wait there is more, the moment they turn around and find someone who isn't spec'd into a meat shield they 2 shot their poor souls while continuing to tank 9 people hahaha? Isn't the whole idea behind balancing that if you spec as a tank you can't deal insane burst damage to kill people. LOLOL what in the actual heck has happened to PvP in this game? I feel bad for any new players who want to get into PvP if they don't have a good circle of friends to gear them up and power level CP it would take months to even get close to the possibility of being competitive they may as well just not even play this game. Now I just run around in Pariah as a stage 3 Vamp in BG's and stalemate everyone else who runs a similar tanky set. Everyone just finds the squishy new player who is attempting to have a glass cannon build and repeatedly dunks them over and over because they are the only person who can die. This must be so fun for the new players.... I did a test on my old Stam Blade i went full divines with huge crit + pen with a perfected masters bow. Sat in the back and spammed snipe shots as a complete glass cannon. It didn't end well I couldn't even deal enough damage to kill someone before they ran behind cover. That just doesn't seem right.... It's either tank up or don't play it seems. What a pathetic gameplay design. Is this going to change anytime soon or is this what ZeniMax thinks fun is? I really wanted to play this game with my friends but if PvP is just find weak targets and tank the rest I don't think we'll be sticking around.

Vevvev

That's that thing.... they're not tanks! Yeah, tanks are not pulling off that 1vX stuff you just saw that are able to turn around and slap someone down. They're damage dealers speced to around 30k HP, high resistances, and a lot of burst healing on hand. Real tanks go to around 40-50k HP, but not these guys because to get more health to become more tanky they actually end up with worse healing that effects their survivability negatively.

To kill them you have to stun them right as your burst combo is coming down upon them. If you don't have the burst to kill them in the time frame from when they get stunned to when they break free you need to find ways to increase your damage and/or find friends able to time it all together. Wars of attrition don't work well on them either unless you zerg them down and keep them in the spotlight (I.E slow them down and don't give them many chances to line of sight) because they have the sustain whether it be through passives, CP, and/or potions to keep the fight up.

schmistertyler

Yea you're right they are not tanks just like my DK and Magplar are not tanks but somehow I am able to kite tank an entire team endlessly. This seems so broken... its one build to rule them all why even do anything else....

YoureWrongImRight

So to sum it up, if you're used to a real PvP MMO like DAoC where you can't just plow into 10 people and expect to survive more than 3 seconds, where you actually have to work collectively with a team to make things happen and have classes play off each other.... run.

Sleep724

Not the whole story but I believe there are a couple sets players use that significantly reduce incoming damage. Iron Blood comes to mind and I believe there’s a way to get around its movement snare.

I was just in Cyrodill for the first time in a year so what do I know but the tanky players who stand there and hold block and/or have significantly reduced incoming damage aren’t the same ones who LOS around trees and rocks then turn around and burst people down.

schmistertyler

I'm talking about templars and dragon knights who have around 35k health and enough burst to kill people while kite tanking an entire team lobbing spells and arrows at them. Their heals are endless and they can burst people down very quickly for having that much survivability. It seems widely overpowered. I've joined the dark side and now have a build like this but it just doesn't even seem fun... Lemme just heal while through 5 people's damage while i find the lowest health/defensive character in the group and burst him down with 3 skills.

umagon

It's not damage mitigation that is the problem; its healing scaling from offensive stats and healing effects stacking on top of each other. There is no real investment into healing that requires players to make any significant sacrifice. Healing needs to scale from its own stat not weapon/spell damage or mag/stam pools. Also, zos made the mistake on allowing healing effects on sets to now crit which just made the problem worse.

StarOfElyon

schmistertyler wrote: »

Me and 5 friends recently came to ESO been playing for about 1-2 months now. Pretty geared-up mythics, sets, monster helms ETC. We all came back with the intentions of PvP because we play a lot of Dark Age of Camelot but this just feels awful. Why in the heck is everyone so tanky? This seems wildley unbalanced I used to have fun ganking in this game with my friends but now everyone and their brother is a ridiculous meat shield. You got guys running around in cyrodill who have 10 people attacking them consistently and cant even get below 70% health are you kidding me???? But wait there is more, the moment they turn around and find someone who isn't spec'd into a meat shield they 2 shot their poor souls while continuing to tank 9 people hahaha? Isn't the whole idea behind balancing that if you spec as a tank you can't deal insane burst damage to kill people. LOLOL what in the actual heck has happened to PvP in this game? I feel bad for any new players who want to get into PvP if they don't have a good circle of friends to gear them up and power level CP it would take months to even get close to the possibility of being competitive they may as well just not even play this game. Now I just run around in Pariah as a stage 3 Vamp in BG's and stalemate everyone else who runs a similar tanky set. Everyone just finds the squishy new player who is attempting to have a glass cannon build and repeatedly dunks them over and over because they are the only person who can die. This must be so fun for the new players.... I did a test on my old Stam Blade i went full divines with huge crit + pen with a perfected masters bow. Sat in the back and spammed snipe shots as a complete glass cannon. It didn't end well I couldn't even deal enough damage to kill someone before they ran behind cover. That just doesn't seem right.... It's either tank up or don't play it seems. What a pathetic gameplay design. Is this going to change anytime soon or is this what ZeniMax thinks fun is? I really wanted to play this game with my friends but if PvP is just find weak targets and tank the rest I don't think we'll be sticking around.

In short: Proc sets

Clever Alchemist: two lines of health and a crap ton of damage. That's a tank-n-spank build's must have.

Vate 2: combined with CA, you can get over 1k weapon and spell damage plus a damage proc on heavy attack.

I mean, I have used CA. I would probably try vate if I felt like grinding for it. I'm just saying, high powered items like these are what allows us to build tanky and still push 6k - 7k weapon damage.

barney2525

Why does the original complaint seem to be ' No Fair! I can't just run around one-shot-ing people.' so to speak.

Aren't other players allowed to defend themselves? Seems to me, there's more challenge to PvP if you Can't just Gank others and have to work for kills.

phairdon

Those 'tanky' type builds/players are nothing new in PVP. Over two years since I last participated in Cyrodiil. Those players were around back then.

Yasha

schmistertyler wrote: »

Me and 5 friends recently came to ESO been playing for about 1-2 months now. Pretty geared-up mythics, sets, monster helms ETC.

You have answered your own question. The gear is OP and you are running into players with better gear/builds than you. Plus you spent 2 months pveing to get said OP gear so don't know how to play because your brain has melted doing scrying etc.

That said, the game has always had builds that could 1vX, maybe there are just less undergeared players now (there seems to be less players in general) so you actually have to use a bit of skill to win. Here is an example of how broken the game could get many years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZsIDSSGV4

Aardappelboom

umagon wrote: »

It's not damage mitigation that is the problem; its healing scaling from offensive stats and healing effects stacking on top of each other. There is no real investment into healing that requires players to make any significant sacrifice. Healing needs to scale from its own stat not weapon/spell damage or mag/stam pools. Also, zos made the mistake on allowing healing effects on sets to now crit which just made the problem worse.

I agree with this.

First of all you have to admit these tanky burst guys don't just have the right build, they know what they're doing.

That said, healing is indeed a bit OP at the moment, you can actually get these guys pretty low with the right combo, but finishing off is hard because they heal very fast.

It's indeed mostly stacking crit and weapon damage or mag/stam that is the culprit.

schmistertyler

barney2525 wrote: »

Why does the original complaint seem to be ' No Fair! I can't just run around one-shot-ing people.' so to speak.

Aren't other players allowed to defend themselves? Seems to me, there's more challenge to PvP if you Can't just Gank others and have to work for kills.

I'm not expecting to 1 shot anyone but yes 1 guy being able to withstand damage from 5 players and still being able to turn around dish enough damage to 3-4 shot another player not built for sustain is a joke. It's what we call unbalanced. That's broken mechanics.

Iron_Warrior

The answer is simple: lack of counters. Over the years ZOS destroyed the counters to these kind of playstyles.

The biggest reason for the survivability of these tanks are their healing. You could counter that before when major and minor defile provided 30% and 15% anti heal and there was a cp to boost defile. Now major and minor defile provide 16% and 8% anti heal and the defile boost cp has been removed but there are still healing boost cps in the game

Other counter was bleeds. They used to bypass armor. They were also destroyed

Another one was oblivion damage. It was not as effective as the other two but still effective cause they also could bypass armor and battlespirit did't affect them. They nerfed oblivion damage to the ground.

When you nerf the counters of a certain playstyle over and over again in any game, that playstyle will become strong.

Nebula_DooM

Yasha wrote: »

schmistertyler wrote: »

Me and 5 friends recently came to ESO been playing for about 1-2 months now. Pretty geared-up mythics, sets, monster helms ETC.

You have answered your own question. The gear is OP and you are running into players with better gear/builds than you. Plus you spent 2 months pveing to get said OP gear so don't know how to play because your brain has melted doing scrying etc.

That said, the game has always had builds that could 1vX, maybe there are just less undergeared players now (there seems to be less players in general) so you actually have to use a bit of skill to win. Here is an example of how broken the game could get many years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZsIDSSGV4

God this game used to be so fun

Yasha

Nebula_DooM wrote: »

Yasha wrote: »

schmistertyler wrote: »

Me and 5 friends recently came to ESO been playing for about 1-2 months now. Pretty geared-up mythics, sets, monster helms ETC.

You have answered your own question. The gear is OP and you are running into players with better gear/builds than you. Plus you spent 2 months pveing to get said OP gear so don't know how to play because your brain has melted doing scrying etc.

That said, the game has always had builds that could 1vX, maybe there are just less undergeared players now (there seems to be less players in general) so you actually have to use a bit of skill to win. Here is an example of how broken the game could get many years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZsIDSSGV4

God this game used to be so fun

And notice the lack of lag ....

NyassaV

Remember when DPS characters would consistently have less than 30k health in PvP? Yeah... That was nice.

Vevvev

NyassaV wrote: »

Remember when DPS characters would consistently have less than 30k health in PvP? Yeah... That was nice.

I remember when 20k was the norm for me. Amazing how things change.

edward_frigidhands

schmistertyler wrote: »

But wait there is more, the moment they turn around and find someone who isn't spec'd into a meat shield they 2 shot their poor souls while continuing to tank 9 people hahaha? Isn't the whole idea behind balancing that if you spec as a tank you can't deal insane burst damage to kill people. LOLO

This does not happen...

You are misrepresenting your experience...

edward_frigidhands

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

The answer is simple: lack of counters. Over the years ZOS destroyed the counters to these kind of playstyl You could counter that before when major and minor defile provided 30% and 15% anti heal and there was a cp to boost defile. Now major and minor defile provide 16% and 8% anti heal and the defile boost cp has been removed but there are still healing boost cps in the game

Major and minor mending were nerfed along with major and minor vitality, effectively reducing both healing done and taken.

The nerfs to the debuffs you have mentioned were balanced by nerfing their corresponding buffs.

With a good setup, TTK is low as ever unless you're targeting actual tanks that pose no threat.

Healing boost cp talents are countered by damage boost talents.

Foto1

the gankers are still strong. the problem is you and your skill. try using something other than snipе

edward_frigidhands

Foto1 wrote: »

the gankers are still strong. the problem is you and your skill. try using something other than snipе

It's easy to build a strong nightblade, sorceror or necromancer build that melts players with ease.

My necromancer alt is a menace.

Seraphayel

I think it’s undeniable that these tanky builds exist for years now and pretty much ruin PvP.

It should always, always be a decision between a) high defense / tanking skills, b) high healing or c) high damage. It should never be a combination of both or all three of them. But with sets they just broke the general rock paper scissors rule and that’s why PvP has been so bad in the last years.

Brrrofski

Balorgh

That's what happened.

If you want to do that, go deadric trickery back bar, pariah on body, vatershan two hand on front bar and balorgh.

Kite around with good resistances and healing, then get to 500 ult and see what you can do

npuk

The taking builds have got worse since deadlands drop & the changes to things like Mechanical Acuity & the crit damage cap means that what was working before no longer works as well as it did, but you can still do it, change your build & skills and you can still 2-3 shot these.

Larcomar

God, where to start.

You seem to have the slightly odd idea that other players are just there for you to gank and be indignant that they're not making it easy for you. Yeah, I know it's your 'power fantasy' and all that, 'play the way you want' but it's pvp. They're other players not mobs. And the game needs to be fun for everyone. They don't owe it to you to lie down and die so the game's fun for you. You want to mow enemies down, stick to PVE.

In particular, you "Sat in the back and spammed snipe shots as a complete glass cannon. It didn't end well." Are you really saying that it should have done? I mean, are you really saying you expect to be able to kill people by spamming one ability, from 40m away and then presumably cloak away the moment any one responds? We had that meta. I'm sure it was fun for the gankers. But it was the biggest complaint on the forums.

But your question was "Why in the heck is everyone so tanky?" I think there's two answers to this.

1. They're not. As you say later on, they're also built for burst. Put in it's simplest terms, players get to wear two sets. A real tank is going to wear two defensive sets; a balanced player will wear one defensive set and one offensive set; a glass canmon will wear two offensive sets. You do see pure tanks but they're pretty rare. Most players that I see go for a balanced build. Because they want to be able to take damage and dish it out.

2. Why? Because if you don't build for some defense and can't go invisible on demand, you're going to get ganked. By yes, people like you. In short, damage is pretty high in this game, lots of players picked up Nbs etc to take advantage of that, and other players had to adapt. Most of my characters wear a mix of offensive and defensive, precisely because if I don't I'm not going to be able to get to where the fight is, yet alone survive it. I'll be dead to a ganker long before I get there.

As to your suggestion that "This seems wildley unbalanced." No, or at least not in itself.

- I get that it's frustrating that you can't just gank whoever you want, but glass cannons can still kill balanced players. Pretty easily actually. It takes a good build and some skill but I see it all the time. And if they fail they can disengage. I don't think this is about tankiness. You said somewhere that you "couldn't even deal enough damage to kill someone before they ran behind cover." You got line of sighted. I'd agree that is an issue, there's too much clutter people can hide behind in cyro. A wall should project you, a cardboard box shouldn't. But it's not builds.

- As to balanced players vs balanced players, you seem to think it's just ends up as a stalemate. Trust me it's not. As others have said, you've got to play tactically. As Vevevv said you've got to have decent defense, sustain, line up your burst and then stun before you drop it. You can't just spam one or two abilities randomly. As you get more experience you'll be able to get kills. It just takes practice. The nice thing is that, nowadays, with a bit of defense, you can actually get that. Rather than just drop dead, open your death recap and find that someone hit you with 5 snipes. From 40m away.

In short, I get that you're finding it frustrating, but that's pvp. Players arn't just going to line up for you, they're going to build so they can survive and they're going to try and counter you. If you just want to mow enemies down, stick to pve. Mobs don't build particularly defensively (seriously, 18200 mitigation?), don't counter you and you can beat them down to your hearts content. If you want to do pvp, you've got to adapt to them. Like someone else said, more pen, sets like CA, things like Vate...

Waseem

slot sword and shield. win
you can block all the incoming damage and "Block-cast" all of your skills, so basically you are dealing damage and blocking all incoming damage at the same time. win !!

BlossomDead

It is indeed an unbalanced lagfest currently. ESO PvP is stuck in a dire state and has been for years probably.

If people think you should have been playing since launch to get 'skilled' they don't understand what PvP is supposed to be like.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom

ZOS just killed any prospect of competitive deathmatch unless there's a hidden feature in development we don't know about.

etchedpixels

NoCP isn't quite so bad but there are problems and for some of the really good well geared players you need a co-ordinated apporach to take them out.

The other thing to remember though is that the very tanky builds are not the problem. They exist to do two things - block you from squashing actual damage dealers, and also to distract people from the real fight so that half the group are not sieging and killing together on the target but chasing a super tanky sorc in circles round and round a small hill like a silent comedy skit.

The past few updates have if anything tried to reduce the healbot / tank problem but not entirely successfully.

xylena_lazarow

schmistertyler wrote: »

PvP is just find weak targets and tank the rest

That's actually a great way to sum up what's wrong with PvP gameplay lately. It's a boring gameplay loop. We've been bleeding players this past year in Cyro and you can't blame it all on the performance anymore.