Ball groups destroying everything fun about pvp

Turtle_Bot

jaws343 wrote: »

What if, instead, full 12 man groups were health capped. Make it diminishing returns for groups, through Battlespirit.

If you are running solo, this doesn't impact you at all. For every player you add to your group, the cap diminishes.

Health for example:
Solo: Uncapped
Duo: 40K cap
Trio: 38K
4Man 36K
5: 34K
6: 32K
7: 30K
8: 28K
9: 26K
10: 24K
11: 22K
12: 20K

12 man groups would still maintain the healing, defensive, and damage advantage. But, they would lose out on stacking health. Making it more dangerous for them when they do end up in execute as their health pool is significantly lower. I mean, think about a 40K health player in execute for the 50% execute skills, that is still 20K damage, or almost an entire player worth of health to chew through. However, a player capped at 20K health, is now in a more precarious spot in execute at 10K health.

This is definitely interesting.

It would need some sort of balance so it doesn't also severely hurt pug zergs too much at the same time, but it could definitely work.
20k is a bit too low imo with the damage creep, but 25k at the absolute lowest value should sit well (enough to survive a typical burst, but easy enough for a coordinated dump to easily wipe, even through infinite healing stacks).

Maybe have it start at 45k for duos and go down to 35k for a full 12 man group but this cap continues to drop to as low as 25k as you have more buffs stacked on you.

For example a typical ball group would have 20+ buffs (including HoTs) stacked at any single time, so if you are in a group of 12 and you have 20+ buffs (including HoTs) on you then your max health caps at 25k, but if you're in a group of 12 and there's only like 3 to 5 buffs on you (typical for pug zergs with 1-2 HoTs, an armor buff and major sorcery/brutality) then your health caps at 33k.

This brings back risk/reward to playing as a ball group, you get significantly stronger the more buffs you have, but it becomes much riskier as you can no longer build as a 45k health tank and keep the immortality provided by the HoT stacking and the damage of a glass cannon PvE build provided by all the group buff access.

OBJnoob wrote: »

The HP scale isn't a bad idea but there are some problems I think. This will make normal zergs very squishy. Like very.

Ballgroups will probably prioritize more damage, which might make ballgroup v ballgroup fun again. That'd be cool.

Ultimately though I think 20k is too low. I'd like it better if the scale stopped at like 26.

It seems we've found something on this topic we agree on (lol). What are you're thoughts on my tweaks to the basic idea, using the amount of buffs present to reduce the cap further while keeping it at a higher level for zergs that won't be stacking anywhere near as many buffs/HoTs that organized/ball groups stack.

20k is too low (you get that being a PvE glass cannon DD with zero health investment already), 25k seems like a good spot, low enough for a coordinated dump to easily wipe out, but high enough to survive most individual burst and pressure (especially with all the mitigation buffs and HoTs that would be stacked up to reach this value).

ZDunlain

bachpain wrote: »

Ball groups run complimentary skills, sets, add-ons to restrict who can take and use synergies so they are most effective etc. This level of coordination with the level of cross healing by anyone in the vicinity is just mind bogglingly powerful. I cannot believe that we are still seeing the ability of more than 2 of the same HOTs and DOTs stacking let alone 10+ on the same player. It has to be possible to limit this with battle spirit active so as not to impact PVE in the least.

The only ones that have anything to say positive for ball groups are those IN the ball groups melting everyone's faces around them while their 25 to 50 HOTs tick away keeping them alive. I am not against coordinated groups at all, but the stacking mechanisms in this game are just too powerfully stacked period.

PC EU BR is a DC zerg constantly, if you dont believe me just go and check the points of the factions. I play there and even at 3 am with all map blue, if you take a resource then start to appear DC to kill you...

Alchimiste1

Tonturri wrote: »

Not saying this should be the only solution, but - also, why not buff DoTs, and/or make AoE application easier? In most games I've ever played that have PvP, part of the back and forth involves HoTs vs DoTs, or in a broader sense keeping health above a certain theshold beacuse below that threshold you're vulnerable to being killed much more easily due to burst or w/e, and DoTs were a staple in trying to strain your enemy healers' resources enough or just bring HP pools down low enough through rot that you had a window to kill someone (that is, they're now regenning maybe 5k HP/S instead of 10k or whatever the case may be and so you have a longer time interval to smash them). It looks like part of the problem is the ridiculously easy availability of and capability to coat your entire group in a heck-ton of over time heals, whereas most DoTs are single target, ground targetted, etc/other limitations.

I think it's important for solutions to combat imbalances to originate from, well, the combat part. Like the health cap thing - I think, while it very well might work, it looks and imo would *feel* absolutely atrocious just from a gameplay perspective, even from the PoV of someone who would benefit. Winning a fight because the enemy has arbitrarily capped health pools would feel...yucky, imo. Hard to articulate here, but eh.

Dots are already strong enough. I'd say we are in a pressure/dot heavy meta. it just so happens ball groups are the best equipped to deal with those type of players.

accidentalist

No comment.

OBJnoob

@Turtle_Bot Yes we agree more or less, lol. I don't really love your addition to the idea though. I'm sure it gets weird trying to keep track of where I "draw the line," and I'm not trying to be inscrutable. BUT. Basically I don't want teamwork to be punished. If large groups in general could be nerfed just by fact of being large that is okay to me. Borderline, but okay, because I do want everyone here to be satisfied. What I don't like is the thought of more buffs equaling less HP. Because now you're just literally punishing people for being good. I say institute the HP scale based on group size but leave it at that. Punishing further for buffs is just lowering the ceiling... Which starts to fall into the same vein, for me, as why I wouldn't want to limit HoT stacks.

Like okay if big groups need nerfed then nerf them. But can we somehow do it without punishing their gear choices or making their abilities useless? Those are my feelings. A horde of zergs can fall at the feet of one ballgroup and I am unmoved. The skill gap is why most of us enjoy the game. Why should solo players get that enjoyment but not groups?

SimonThesis

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

Marcus684

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

It's easy to kill a stack of 20 because so many people don't seem to bother to put together a decent pvp build. Even so, I've seen ball groups run through 20+ opposing players and kill no one until they turn and dump. They mostly rely on hard CCs and things like DC, VD and OO to gather together and blow up low health casuals and take out large masses of players, but when they face another ball or a decent group of players they struggle to kill anyone, while still being all but unkillable due to heal/shield stacking.

While potential damage may indeed be quite high right now, I don't think it's relevant to the problem with ball groups. If ZOS were to leave healing alone and somehow nerf damage across the board, then no one other than casuals would die in Cyrodiil except to siege and things woud be even more stale.

jaws343

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

It could be done in a way that requires a player to approach health and resources in a normal way, to avoid spreading stats out away from health. You could still need to hit X health pool that gets scaled down. Or something like that.

OBJnoob

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

I mean whatever we decide here-- if by some miracle it were to get adopted in a patch-- the ballgroups will adapt. That's what some people really don't understand. It isn't X, it isn't Y, it isn't Z. There's just a bunch of them, they're organized, and they're good players.

Just like a PvE trial group, or like every good solo player, they're gonna read up on the notes brainstorm adjustments and come in Day 2 as strong as ever.

The ONLY real solution is to make groups smaller. That's literally it. But people don't like that.

ShadowProc

OBJnoob wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

I mean whatever we decide here-- if by some miracle it were to get adopted in a patch-- the ballgroups will adapt. That's what some people really don't understand. It isn't X, it isn't Y, it isn't Z. There's just a bunch of them, they're organized, and they're good players.

Just like a PvE trial group, or like every good solo player, they're gonna read up on the notes brainstorm adjustments and come in Day 2 as strong as ever.

The ONLY real solution is to make groups smaller. That's literally it. But people don't like that.

Yes and no. They use to be Killable. Need to nerf their cross healing and just as important, if not more important, MOBILITY.

Need to allow moments where they are pinned down and you can focus damage, negates, etc.

The problem is mobility allows them to stay out of sticky situations. Bombard spam meta an example.

They focus anyone that threatens their mobility or healing.

OBJnoob

ShadowProc wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

I mean whatever we decide here-- if by some miracle it were to get adopted in a patch-- the ballgroups will adapt. That's what some people really don't understand. It isn't X, it isn't Y, it isn't Z. There's just a bunch of them, they're organized, and they're good players.

Just like a PvE trial group, or like every good solo player, they're gonna read up on the notes brainstorm adjustments and come in Day 2 as strong as ever.

The ONLY real solution is to make groups smaller. That's literally it. But people don't like that.

Yes and no. They use to be Killable. Need to nerf their cross healing and just as important, if not more important, MOBILITY.

Need to allow moments where they are pinned down and you can focus damage, negates, etc.

The problem is mobility allows them to stay out of sticky situations. Bombard spam meta an example.

They focus anyone that threatens their mobility or healing.

I don't know what to say. I don't much want to go down the long road I've already been down, but I just feel like most of the problems being broached with regard to ballgroups are also true for solo encounters.

Some people wear snow treaders. -shrug- All it takes is a DC or RoA to cluster them. It's really not that hard to target the blob. And frankly they don't move that fast anyway. Just fast-ish.

Some decent tactics my guilds and I have employed in the past are faking ulti-dumps... Which basically means one or two of your crew have to waste their ultis and then quickly retreat in an effort to get the ballgroup to waste their defensive ultis.

Also, try intentionally missing them with a negate. Put it down Infront of their path instead of on top of them. Then ulti dump behind it. Or put it behind them to force them to continue forward.

Using pulls on individuals to extricate them from the herd also works.

GvG fights used to be so fun. I think people forgot how to do it.

Iriidius

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

JerBearESO wrote: »

ZoS needs to 100% deactivate cross healing for a month and see what happens. Healers will complain, I'm sure, but ZoS needs to see the effect it would have in general. I think it would be called.... enjoyment?

Granted we need an actual solution. But in the meantime, they would see just how many people stay off PvP specifically because of these ball groups shutting cyro enjoyment down for everyone.... That is to say, with cross healing gone for a while, we would see a lot of players staying on their campaign more.

They already know what will happen as they did disabled cross healing in the past. What happened was the following: only ball groups left, most solo players and randoms stopped playing. There were even threads here on forums about ball group players complaining that all they fight are other ball groups...

...which was a hilarious karma twist in a way lol

No they dont, ZoS disabled only crosshealing between different groups(including 1man group=solo players) and not crosshealing inside groups, making crosshealing exclusive for ballgroups. But surely a ballgroup opposed player asking to disable crosshealing to weaken ballgroups wants to disable only crosshealing between different groups so that ballgroups are not effected and get exclusive access to healstacking.

Quackery wrote: »

JerBearESO wrote: »

ZoS needs to 100% deactivate cross healing for a month and see what happens. Healers will complain, I'm sure, but ZoS needs to see the effect it would have in general. I think it would be called.... enjoyment?

Granted we need an actual solution. But in the meantime, they would see just how many people stay off PvP specifically because of these ball groups shutting cyro enjoyment down for everyone.... That is to say, with cross healing gone for a while, we would see a lot of players staying on their campaign more.

Deactivating cross-healing only helps ball groups because, you know, they can STILL HEAL EACH OTHER INSIDE THE GROUP!!! And how do you expect people to stay alive when counter-siege is pummeling the siegers if cross-healing isn't allowed?? Only those who do not heal keep pushing this idea about removing cross-healing. That is NOT the issue!

He asked to remove cross healing, not to remove cross healing only between different groups. Crosshealing inside groups is still crosshealing even if ZoS doesnt include it in their no crosshealing(outside group) phase. Group only healing was to reduce calculations, not to weaken groups, probably because players dont heal randoms most of the time anyway. Why would anybody want to disable crosshealing for everyone EXCEPT GROUPS to nerf ballgroups.

LordSkruff wrote: »

Good Afternoon,

I would like to add a few points here i dont have much time for forums.



yes ballgroups are ridiculously overperforming.
Speaking from a long term competetive player and ballgroupers perspective.

they are like big fish in a little pool.

My 12 man is capable of tanking 90+ players if all roles are played perfectly.
It isnt special it has been done many times by several groups.

its clear that this isnt healthy for the longevity of the playerbase's existence in PvP.

Options that i think could be explored are as follows.

increase server cap ( Not great )
this would come with issues like the return of lag however the zergs might big big enough to have some influence. in general this isnt a healthy approach in my opinion. it doesnt resolve the Core problem that is the OVERBEARING odds ballgroups are able to face. eventually youll run into the same problem.

reduce group size max in cyrodill again ( Pretty good )
if group size were at max say 6. there would still be overwhelmingly powerful 6 man groups however they arent quite nearly as overbearing to fight against.
However... groups of 6 Max makes many fights impossible for many groups to co ordinate resulting in stagnant Map Activity.

significantly reduce the effectiveness of group buffing sets in PvP zones ( Great Idea )
One of the REAL problems of effective vs ineffective group play is just how much of a powerful tool group buff sets are...
many of them are JUST as good in solo gameplay as they are in group.

Rallying cry. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+
Trans. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 2+
Plaguebreak. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+
Olorime. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+
Spc. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+
Powerful assault. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+
Phoenix Moth. Perfectly Viable in group sizes of 1+

there are many more.

Saxhleel.
Pillager.
Sanctuary.
Ebon.
Worm.
Hircine.

And these are JUST BASIC SETS.

some of these sets to just name a few of a potential 50+ effective group play sets
are used even in SOLO gameplay extensively as a no brainer solution...

in a typical ballgroup you would have 10+ group buffing sets each of which are pushing the groups tankiness, sustain or damage for the group to a region of 10 - 25% gains PER SET depending on set chosen.

two ways of Interpreting a Potential fix to this i can think of.

if every GROUP buffing specific set was Dynamically Scaling in Power based on Group Size (reducing large groups power)
if every GROUP buffing specific set was nerfed by a blanket 50%

Solo players would remain unaffected (some sets perhaps arent viable anymore in option 2)
Smallscalers would have to decide wether the buff is actually worth it or not.
Large groups would still use said sets but would be massively easier to kill.

i know and appreciate that this would affect PVE greatly causing many sets to be dropped in dungeons completely.

however if there was a battle spirit debuff like group buff sets reduced by say a % proportional to your weight in a group that would be enough i think.

Ballgroups are exactly as everyone already said. organized. sometimes HYPER organized. if you reduce the impact that organization provides to the group. it can only help casual players, become a bigger part of a more interesting fight.





Crosshealing.

Crosshealing is often pointed at as the root of all evil. i think a Cap on how many Crossheals a player can recieve is a Perfect solution to such a Problem. IE ( 6 Echoing Vigors Max 6 Rad Regens Max )

Siege currently IS a massive anti player tool for the casual player.

i dont think you can go ahead and completely destroy crossheal without doing any of the following.

buffing siege shield to mitigate a larger amount of damage or Cover a Larger Area. depending on just HOW BADLY you nerf crossheal.

Similarly. on a more personal note,

i think in general a nerf to siege Damage is in order to let players feel some kind of benefit from actually playing the game and not just siege simulator.

i lose count of the amount of times players STOP what they are doing in the midst of killing or being killed by players. to PLACE A SIEGE to have a Far greater advantage then zerging does. i dont think this is right. it isnt fun for either party. Keeps currently if scounted effectively are almost Completely unapproachable for even organized 12 man groups. DESPITE how overpowered people seem to claim ballgroups are.

In short.
Ease up on the rewards gained for Hyper Optimization. let ballgroups feel up to say 40% less effect from their optimization
Cap the amount of Crossheals a Group can Recieve to Bridge a Gap Between Smaller and Larger groups to 6 of any given hot
Ease up on siege effectiveness flat by 40%

everyone wins.

Let me know what people think.

Regards,

a long term fan.

LordSkruff.

LordSkruff wrote: »

I would like to add that group buff sets should most certainly prevail as the best option
for groups in general

I’ll pick a random set

Sanctuary
12% healing received

In solo this doesn’t compete with some of the other options such as.

Old Maras balm
Hist sap

And fairly so.

However if you have 12 players all benefiting from such a buff it quickly turns into an extreme advantage which no other set can compare to.

Even if this set were 4-6% maybe even less it would still hold out great value and be incorporated into many optimized 12 man groups.

Every set like this should just scale down for each person in your group.

You already have the advantage of having an entire extra player to provide a massive effect on damage healing etc, whatever the role is

Does he really need to bring 12% healing with him?

Isn’t 4-6% enough to still outperform almost any other alternative?

If even LordSkruff, second-in-command of Project Nova, strongest Ballgroup PC EU that profits the most from ballgroup advantages, thinks that ballgroups are too strong than who are all the players defending bllgroups? Some ballgroup-only players that never set a foot in Cyrodiil without their ballgroup?

Sanctuary giving 10% healing for user and up to 11 group members results in up to 120% extra healing from one 5piece althought divided up between 12 players.
For example Powerful assault 5piece bonus is 307 weapon dmg with up to 100% uptime. Thats 8 weapon dmg more than hundings rage and onebarable. If you use echoing vigor in a group and hit 6 people you give full powerful assault five pieve
to every of the 6 people increasing the sum of their wpn dmg by 1842. If you cast echoin vigor twice you hit up to eleven group members(twice yourself) you increase their wpn dmg sum by 3377. A 12man group can get 3684, a 24man group could get 7368 wpn dmg alltogether when 24 man groups would still exist. 1 5piece giving 3684 wpn dmg is clearly OP, a selfish set giving only slightly more wpn dmg than spreedsheet gets nerfed.
Only rallying cry stats dimish a bit with increasing group size, but it still gives more than half of the value to 12 players.
The same with Hot stacking, before update 35 echoing vigor and radiating regen gave the same healing as the solo morphs resolving vigor and rapid regen over twice the duration to 3-6(times as many) people and by casting it multiple times to even more people without dimishing returns.
When you share group buffs and healing it doesnt get divided between group members but multiplied to everyone, everyone gets the full value.
Players in Ballgroup theoretically get up to 24 5 set boni and 12 monster sets, In reality a few less but still many, group buffs from all classes and other skillines, synergys and multiple times the healing solo players have. Does anyone really want to tell me all these buffs and crosshealing dont make a difference and It all comes only from beeing organized?

Sure beeing organized and using voicechat gives you an advantage and the possibility to call out one target to focuss, coordinate burst combos to hit at the same time and use strategy, but without crosshealing (inside group) and group buff sets they would only be 12 players with normal tankiness and damage working together and doing coordinated group bust and not 12 incredible booster players with more dmg and healing than an emperor and 1,5x the dmg and 4-6x the healing of a normal player. They would die if you hit them with a good burst combo, dot pressure or a few coldfireshots or oils like solo players and wouldnt do 34k novas. If all ballgroup strength comes only from playing together as a team with voicechat than why are all the group players so much against nerfs to crosshealing. Only because you already have an advantage by playing as an organized group, you should get even more advantages?

Saying nerfing Ballgroups is useless because they will just adapt and players will still complain is like saying ballgroups are so op that if you nerf them they are still op.
With the same argument you can also say that dk shouldnt get nerfed because they are so op that they would still be op if they get nerfed. But DK got nerfed in u34,35,37 and 38 and will get nerfed in u39 again and many of the players defending ballgroup ask for more dk nerfs. Maybe we should just revert all nerfs to dk since update 33 because dks are still seen as op after all these nerfs.

Players say they want to be rewarded for their effort creating builds, but who profits from their effort? The players you fight dont profit from you doing this effort except that you maybe have less time to farm them.
You wouldnt have to do this effort if you didnt get rewarded.
You want to do be able to do this effort because you want an advantage over other players that dont do this effort.

Some Players say that ballgroups are doing the same as 1vXers in larger scale. However 1vXers use only tools available to everyone while ballgroups use tools only available to organized groups and not to the randoms they fight.
As a 1vXer the players you fight often use 1vX builds themselve if they are real PvPers, so you dont have gear advantage over them. As a 1vXer you can only kill players that are squishy, have bad reaction time, don't heal themselfe or dont use black, dodge or other defenses and dont get healed by others. But in this case you usually fail. Most of the time the players I 1vX are not real PvPers but bad players that PvDoor and only want to fight 20v1 and loose when it is only 4v1.
How can solo players/1vXers be op when they cant do anything you cant do in group?
As a ballgroup however you can also kill tanky experienced PvP player without much counterplay. Often you get pulled in(even when out of pull range), get stunned and killed before you can break free or at least before you can get our of area. Even if the players the ballgroup fights are more skilled than the ballgroup, the ballgroup still has big advantage because of crosshealing, group buffs and organisation and can kill many times their own numbers except the other players use these tools themselfe in which case they are a ballgroup/ organized group themselfe.



2 days ago I was in sneak between Alessia and Faregyl trying to log out when a blue ballgroup first rided by, then dismountet and ambushed me from behind.


A linear increase in group size results in a quadratic increase in group strength.

OBJnoob wrote: »

ShadowProc wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

The problem is damage is very high and time to kill is so low, right now it only takes 3 dps + lead dps to kill a stack of 20 in a second. Thats why they have room to have 5 healers and 3 supports etc. Years ago when damage was weaker they needed more dps and everyone ran less health. If damage was nerfed they'd need more dps and less healers.

Also yall are going down the wrong road with the health thing, they'll just stack even more shields instead of health. Or they'll take the lost health turn into max resources and their healers will be stronger.

I mean whatever we decide here-- if by some miracle it were to get adopted in a patch-- the ballgroups will adapt. That's what some people really don't understand. It isn't X, it isn't Y, it isn't Z. There's just a bunch of them, they're organized, and they're good players.

Just like a PvE trial group, or like every good solo player, they're gonna read up on the notes brainstorm adjustments and come in Day 2 as strong as ever.

The ONLY real solution is to make groups smaller. That's literally it. But people don't like that.

Yes and no. They use to be Killable. Need to nerf their cross healing and just as important, if not more important, MOBILITY.

Need to allow moments where they are pinned down and you can focus damage, negates, etc.

The problem is mobility allows them to stay out of sticky situations. Bombard spam meta an example.

They focus anyone that threatens their mobility or healing.

I don't know what to say. I don't much want to go down the long road I've already been down, but I just feel like most of the problems being broached with regard to ballgroups are also true for solo encounters.

Some people wear snow treaders. -shrug- All it takes is a DC or RoA to cluster them. It's really not that hard to target the blob. And frankly they don't move that fast anyway. Just fast-ish.

Some decent tactics my guilds and I have employed in the past are faking ulti-dumps... Which basically means one or two of your crew have to waste their ultis and then quickly retreat in an effort to get the ballgroup to waste their defensive ultis.

Also, try intentionally missing them with a negate. Put it down Infront of their path instead of on top of them. Then ulti dump behind it. Or put it behind them to force them to continue forward.

Using pulls on individuals to extricate them from the herd also works.

GvG fights used to be so fun. I think people forgot how to do it.

people didnt forgot how to do GvG fights, they cant do GvG because they are not in a G(roup/uild). There are still GvG fights when you have 2 groups and they dont decide it is easier to avoid each other and farm the randoms insteat.

Also in my experience ballgroups can kill each other, it only takes a while because they will not attack without their ultimates and sybergys available when the other group might have them and fails when the other group gets away too fast.

Twig_Garlicshine

Ball Group = auto play by stacking hots, buffs etc.

Organized group or small man = organized and coordinated individuals performing roles.

Removing or limiting hots/buffs stacking to 1 or maybe 2 of the same type per individual might make organized/small man more challenging, yet I would welcome it because it would remove auto play from ball groups and make them --perform at an actual skill level-- a good thing for the game.

Funny that Zos never did remove --in group-- hot buff stacking as part of their server tests, I wonder why....