FirmamentOfStars wrote: »Did you not read my post thouroughly? I said it needs certain skills, but most ballgroupers outside of their ballgroup are not very good players on their own. I never compared it to casual groups and obviously a ball group requires more skill compared to a casual group of the same size. I was talking about the individual skill of a ballgrouper being not great in most cases.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »FirmamentOfStars wrote: »Did you not read my post thouroughly? I said it needs certain skills, but most ballgroupers outside of their ballgroup are not very good players on their own. I never compared it to casual groups and obviously a ball group requires more skill compared to a casual group of the same size. I was talking about the individual skill of a ballgrouper being not great in most cases.
If you catch a ballgroup player alone while still in their ballgroup gear then no, they won't be very strong because their set-up is adjusted to the group.
If you catch a ballgroup player alone while they're playing solo then there is a very good chance they will wipe the floor with you. Of course there is difference between each player, but this idea that people play in a ball formation because they cannot survive on their own is a fairytale. Someone who is a bad player outside of a ballgroup will also do badly inside a ballgroup. In the end the skillset to be successful as a duelist or a ballgroup player is not so different: you need great buff up-time, a good sense of timing and the ability to anticipate the enemy.
Likewise, if you drop an experienced ballgroup player inside a different group composition of any size, they will always float to the top in the damage and healing logs, often by a large gap.
FirmamentOfStars wrote: »I fought a lot of ballgroup players and most of them solo in solo gear play on average skill level or maybe slightly above. But they were nowhere near as good as you make it sound. Ball groups get most of their effectiveness by having coordinated their sets perfectly and moving well together. But every solo or small scale player will most likely beat them 1v1 unless the ballgrouper is experienced in that content too (most of them arent, since most of them do not really play much outside of their group).
As a group we are making progression. But we are still struggling with some DC players. They get in execute range, but eventually can't be killed and are healed up again. Zerging would work only but we are lacking players as we are often not more then 10. Very weird that they never run out of resources it feels. It starts with one and then a group is coming in and then a next one and they all show the same patern. The list of sets working in this campaign is quite outdated and ever since new sets have been added to the game. Are we missing some information? We have a suspicion some sets should be added to the list, otherwise I have to keep accusing them of cheating. I wish for an explanation.
It depends on what you mean with "The list"?The list of sets working in this campaign is quite outdated and ever since new sets have been added to the game. Are we missing some information? We have a suspicion some sets should be added to the list, otherwise I have to keep accusing them of cheating. I wish for an explanation.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »On average, DC are probably the best players individually and the most likely to be good at managing their resources.
Where does this come from? I don't believe that. DC has just a structural advantage because they keep telling me that they are not cheating. Why would the so-called good players play DC? They are blue.
How many hours do we need to play to get our builds right? I can't spend more time on this game. I want to go to Cyrodiil, have a group and some fun and not face all the changes from introducing more stuff too much. The original list of sets should only work in this game because that is clear, but somehow players are always trying to bypass the rules and find a way to exploit. Why is there even room for it in this campaign? If I play chess the pieces are always the same. Now it is just too random.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »Where does this come from? I don't believe that. DC has just a structural advantage because they keep telling me that they are not cheating. Why would the so-called good players play DC? They are blue.
Bluntly put, tryhards attract tryhards. Each campaign differs but in the past it's often been the case that DC had lower numbers on Ravenwatch, especially during prime time. So if you want to fight on DC side you need to learn to fend for yourself as you cannot hide in the zerg as often. The past 2 campaigns DC have been zerging quite a lot, but this was not always the case.
Forcing yourself to fight outnumbered all the time will make you a better player. This is also why you will sometimes find solo/smallscale players from DC fight on other alliances when DC is pop-locked, as it is harder for them to find the fights they want when their own alliance already dominates.
As an outside observer it also seems like ACE provides a good basis for people to learn and improve. On AD and EP you are largely left to your own devices if you want to stand out as a player. There are not many guilds that could tell you exactly how to build/play at a high level, and online resources for Ravenwatch are very limited. AD guilds are mostly casual and EP guilds seem more preoccupied with faction loyalty and campaign objectives than with uplifting the overall skill of their members.How many hours do we need to play to get our builds right? I can't spend more time on this game. I want to go to Cyrodiil, have a group and some fun and not face all the changes from introducing more stuff too much. The original list of sets should only work in this game because that is clear, but somehow players are always trying to bypass the rules and find a way to exploit. Why is there even room for it in this campaign? If I play chess the pieces are always the same. Now it is just too random.
Don't blame players for this. Blame whoever is in charge of PVP at ZOS for turning Ravenwatch in a non-proc campaign and then treating it as a complete afterthought. You asked what gives DC players an advantage. Part of being a good player is going out of your way to test set-ups, looking at the data and determining what works best for you. That takes time, but it's not unreasonable to have a system in place where you get out what you put in. I spent a year on Ravenwatch healing on different classes, finding ways to improve, discussing with different raid leaders, joining literally every group that would have me at one point, etc. So of course I am going to be a lot more effective than someone who slaps on a 2-year-old Deltia build and calls it a day. But I also go out of my way to help whoever's asking with their healing set-up, whether it's a guildmate or someone else (insert shameless plug for my own healing content here).
Omg and we did not even talk about class and skill/spell changes yet. Quite a big narrative. I don't disagree with how you fill in your time playing. But trail and error every set is an approch that not many players will find time for. It is of course not forbidden to have so much patience. But appearently some DC players have time enough.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »Omg and we did not even talk about class and skill/spell changes yet. Quite a big narrative. I don't disagree with how you fill in your time playing. But trail and error every set is an approch that not many players will find time for. It is of course not forbidden to have so much patience. But appearently some DC players have time enough.
Honestly not to push my own stuff but just let your healers copy my build and see how it goes.
FirmamentOfStars wrote: »I mean…it cant be that difficult to make a healer build with no proc rules. You can use healer‘s habit, if you do not have minor mending yet, otherwise heartland conqueror to double the powered weapon trait. Orders wrath for crit healing or a sustain set like amberplasm or eternal vigor if bad at sustaining. Otherwise you equip a tanky set like pariah to not die quickly or rattlecage to have sorcery up all the time. Resto staff plus either sword and shield or ice staff (with blockade as utility) to blockcast burst heals when you need it. Theorycrafting in no cp isnt rocket science but still people run around with bad builds.
There are no secret sets and OP builds that mysteriously work in no cp and such stuff. Most of it is about learning the game and getting good and for that you need to step outside of your zergs or ballgroups (and no, still havent seen ballgroupers doing well without their group).
WaywardArgonian wrote: »FirmamentOfStars wrote: »I mean…it cant be that difficult to make a healer build with no proc rules. You can use healer‘s habit, if you do not have minor mending yet, otherwise heartland conqueror to double the powered weapon trait. Orders wrath for crit healing or a sustain set like amberplasm or eternal vigor if bad at sustaining. Otherwise you equip a tanky set like pariah to not die quickly or rattlecage to have sorcery up all the time. Resto staff plus either sword and shield or ice staff (with blockade as utility) to blockcast burst heals when you need it. Theorycrafting in no cp isnt rocket science but still people run around with bad builds.
There are no secret builds but still many players including those in ballgroups run around with subpar set-ups, hence why I keep pointing out what the best build is - Heartland Conqueror + Eternal Vigor; every other set you mentioned will underperform compared to this apart from Amber Plasm, which is pretty much the same. Dual wield swords + resto staff for groups of 6-7 or more, resto staff + ice staff for smallscaling.
It's not rocket science but at the same time almost noone runs this and when they do they run the wrong food type, use the wrong weight, slap on vamp 3 where it isn't needed or nerf their own build with Oakensoul. It's important to get the details right.There are no secret sets and OP builds that mysteriously work in no cp and such stuff. Most of it is about learning the game and getting good and for that you need to step outside of your zergs or ballgroups (and no, still havent seen ballgroupers doing well without their group).
What kind of group should a ballgrouper play in as a healer to prove that they can 'do well'?
FirmamentOfStars wrote: »With this question you kinda proved my point…no? You are confident in your role as a ball group healer, but what if you played solo (i dont mean healing zergs now)? You yourself can not play solo, since you only know healing groups. If we put a standard solo build on you, you would not de very well 1v1 or 1vX.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »FirmamentOfStars wrote: »With this question you kinda proved my point…no? You are confident in your role as a ball group healer, but what if you played solo (i dont mean healing zergs now)? You yourself can not play solo, since you only know healing groups. If we put a standard solo build on you, you would not de very well 1v1 or 1vX.
You seem to assume that because I heal ballgroups now, that is the only thing I have experience with. I started playing pvp solo for a year before I joined a group. Then I got bored of playing alone. I still play smallscale and sometimes duo. Solo not so much anymore, because since last year I prefer playing a healer, and again, playing a healer solo is not a thing because if you're only healing yourself you're a tank.
Have you found a group meanwhile? Both the Pact and the Dominion need at least one quality group that keeps us busy AND coordinates with their faction in order to change the way the things are. We would even offer substantial tipps how to deal with our 2 groups that make life so miserable for the other factions. It`s bad for us, too (albeit understandable), if people actively avoid fighting us.
If both EP or AD had 1 SmallScale group, 1 ball group, and 1 guild + lfG group and some Lydia-like trolls who would support one another, we would actually have to fight for our APs. Both our SmallScale group and our Bomb group have specific weaknesses that can be exploited.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »
So I don't think it's fair to talk about avoiding fights when that is the situation that seems to be the norm. I also don't recall DDK seeming very keen on facing Noxious alone when we were still raiding.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »
So I don't think it's fair to talk about avoiding fights when that is the situation that seems to be the norm. I also don't recall DDK seeming very keen on facing Noxious alone when we were still raiding.
Ah that`s easy, on raid days we run in 2 5-7 man groups, one is the ACE group the other is mine. General tactic against superior forces is to skirmish around and wait for the second group to arrive, whilst weaker groups are handled immediately without calling for support. This was designed specifically to make life very frustrating for other ball groups. One group has the survivability, the other has the firepower. Since enemy groups lack professionalism, they can`t distinguish between the 2 and waste time running on the walls instead of destroying one group before the second one arrives. Both groups have specific weaknesses* that could be exploited, though there are only 2 or 3 ballgroups in Europe who can handle this kind of tactic.
*E.g. my personal group is solely based on firepower and lacks support & survivability, because I put the firepower of a 12man group into a group of 6. Furthermore, I typically take the more inexperienced players with me whilst most of our more experienced players are in the ACE group.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »
Just sounds like a roundabout way of having an unoptimized ballgroup when you consider that useful skills such as Barrier are limited to group members, and a split group is always more vulnerable than a group that plays as one.
In any case I've never had trouble with DDK unless they arrived with a full faction zerg so maybe you're overthinking it. There are no good ballgroups currently active on AD/EP Ravenwatch so it's not like any group set-up, however genius it might seem, will be properly stress-tested.
Well, "full faction zerg" is raid leader code for "I made a mistake and I`m blaming it on others so people don`t lose faith in my abilities".
There are only 3 options here:
a) A group is good enough to handle the faction zerg. If it still wipes, then the raid leader obviously did not have enough redundancy in his group to balance out individual mistakes or bad luck.: It`s a planning error.
b) The group was not good enough to handle the situation. In that case it`s the raid leaders` lack of judgement that is to blame. He could have chosen to retreat and pull parts of the zerg to another fighting place, but instead he decided to die where he stood.
c) The group wipes on purpose. This was the old school way of ending a ballgroup evening.
Neither option has anything to do with the enemy faction zerg itself.
It is surprisingly easy to take out DC`s faction zerg when you use the right tools for the right job. One group is vulnerable against ranged attacks, another does only push when they know that they will win AND is vulnerable against enemy small scalers, and the rest can be easily handled by a half decent ballgroup. Furthermore, DC`s groups are small and need time for reinforcements to arrive, so you can take them out one at a time if you are skilled enough.
Being zerged by DC is frustrating, but it typically means that the group did not kill fast enough, and consequently, was not good enough. IF one kills fast enough, DC groups will arrive piecemeal and can be destroyed one after the other. There was a group of yell overload sorcs who did this, I think 2 weeks ago, and they could farm for hours.
Ah that`s easy, on raid days we run in 2 5-7 man groups, one is the ACE group the other is mine. General tactic against superior forces is to skirmish around and wait for the second group to arrive
WaywardArgonian wrote: ».
xMetalheartx wrote: »
Lets not not try to zerg.
on raid days we run in 2 5-7 man groups, one is the ACE group the other is mine. General tactic against superior forces is to skirmish around and wait for the second group to arrive, whilst weaker groups are handled immediately without calling for support. This was designed specifically to make life very frustrating for other ball groups. One group has the survivability, the other has the firepower.
Old_Lady_Helena wrote: »What to do against it though?
Maybe (please don't kill me) the guild groups could time their raids better so that the population are a bit more even, at least during primetime. That would require the wilingness to communicate though.