The New Damage Shield Sets are A Disgusting and Unacceptable Buff to Ballgroups

acastanza_ESO

The new sets "The Blind" and "Blind Path Induction" are enabling a truly game breaking amount of damage shielding for coordinated groups. These are groups that are already rotating barriers on cooldown and stacking Gibbering Shelter on top of it to 100% uptime. These new sets have added even more shielding on top of it to the point where even an entire faction actively sieging can't punch through the damage shields. How the combat design team thinks this is acceptable on what is an obviously PVP targeted set is baffling beyond belief.

merevie

Watching half the pvp population bounce around in 60k shields, and these are casual mid-week players.

acastanza_ESO

merevie wrote: »

Watching half the pvp population bounce around in 60k shields, and these are casual mid-week players.

Yeah that's nothing. I'm talking about the likes of one single group pumping out over 30 MILLION in shields alone in the course of one single 20 minute fight. That is not an exaggeration that is the actual number summed from logs.

Aurielle

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

The new sets "The Blind" and "Blind Path Induction" are enabling a truly game breaking amount of damage shielding for coordinated groups. These are groups that are already rotating barriers on cooldown and stacking Gibbering Shelter on top of it to 100% uptime. These new sets have added even more shielding on top of it to the point where even an entire faction actively sieging can't punch through the damage shields. How the combat design team thinks this is acceptable on what is an obviously PVP targeted set is baffling beyond belief.

Just read the set tooltips… What a joke! Every ball group will wear these sets now, in addition to the standard VD/DC pairing. Combined with their constantly stacked HoTs, these mobile bombs will be truly unkillable by anything other than a highly organized ball group killer squad (or five). RIP to skilled, but less organized guild groups that don’t impose strict build requirements on team members.

SkaraMinoc

The Blind
(2 items) Critically healing yourself or an ally grants them a Hydroglass Damage Shield that absorbs up to 2692 damage for 6 seconds. While the Damage Shield holds and for 3 seconds after it ends, the target gains Minor Force, increasing their Critical Damage done by 10%. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds per target.



Blind Path Induction
(5 items) Increase the strength of your Damage Shields by 13% to you and targets 15 meters of you. Increase your Healing Done by 13% to targets more than 15 meters away from you.

AnduinTryggva

That is insane. Cyro will be ballgroups only...

Garamant

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

Unorganized mobs up to a certain size won't stand much of a chance in any case, because of that missing coordination, no matter the sets.

Haven't played in ballgroups that much yet, but to my knowledge the bonesurge skill and the mender's ward set, do similar things like these two new sets do, already. So you might nerf Blind Path Induction to work on the wielder only, but they will just change to other sets with major vitality and group heals.

Buffing anything else to counter shield, be it oblivion damage, or sets like shield breaker, will be detrimental for sorc survivability (single or small groups), which should definitely not happen.

notyuu

Yeah, so when is zos gonna add anti Ball group mechanics/systems (beyond the currently available bombing)

Jaraal

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Blind Path Induction
(5 items) Increase the strength of your Damage Shields by 13% to you and targets 15 meters of you.

Nobody's been able to handle all 15 meters of me! Target all you want!


But seriously.... what about the targets 14 meters and closer? Is this another one of those Domihaus type effects where you have to be standing on a 15 meter ring?

dmnqwk

Garamant wrote: »

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

Unorganized mobs up to a certain size won't stand much of a chance in any case, because of that missing coordination, no matter the sets.

Haven't played in ballgroups that much yet, but to my knowledge the bonesurge skill and the mender's ward set, do similar things like these two new sets do, already. So you might nerf Blind Path Induction to work on the wielder only, but they will just change to other sets with major vitality and group heals.

Buffing anything else to counter shield, be it oblivion damage, or sets like shield breaker, will be detrimental for sorc survivability (single or small groups), which should definitely not happen.

At the same time, effects which benefit multiple people in pvp should be limited in the number it can affect - from everyone down to 3 allies. Heals, shields, buffs etc should only affect 3 people (10 second timer if it affects individually on a personal cooldown).

gorky1

They should quick patch a new item set like this: (or change one of the never used ones.)

Praeton's Curse:
Slots 1-4 something.
5 set items - Negates any summoned shield for 10 secs. Causes target to deal damage to itself every time a shield is activated during that time frame equal to shield strength. Any group members within 15 meters will also take damage from their shield activation. The curse can only be activated every 60 seconds on that target. (Allows use on next ball member though...)

There should be something the ball groups really are afraid of.

subarctic

RIP PACT EU/PC

Unorganized pact before update was already butchered more or less by the ball groups of AD and DC. The motley crew and wonderful abnormies of the Pact are not mentally able it seems to organize a ball group. After U41 we’ll be pigs for slaughter. oink oink

Treeshka

There were a patch where you could bomb ball groups or at least damage them nicely.

There were no cap on Critical Damage. Vampire toggle was not nerfed. Acuity was an instant proc. Just imagine how powerful that combo was and look at it now.

Your damage has to go off in a second to succeed so their heals can not find enough time to tick. Nowadays this is nearly impossible due to all that shielding alone. Now they have access to two more sets that gives more shields.

At this point probably a sticky dot like negate is needed. The one that can not be purged by others or when purged by others it explodes or something like that.

Roztlin45

Shield breaker set needs a 50% buff to players with dmg shield.

nejcn001

As mostly a solo player, random Cyrodiil is the most fun, hands down.

When in a ballgroup, it provides zero challenge, fights become stale and not fun, after a while.

Fighting versus a ballgroup, its just feels pointless, even by ignoring them, you will meet them again as they follow the crowd.

So by ignoring ballgroups, you are left with tower trolls and PVE...

I still try Cyro occasional, until i find a ballgroup, then i just queue for battlegrounds


How to fix cyro then?
For every heal over time tick on the player is reduced by 10%.
So if a player has 4 HOTs on them, the longest (most recent) HOT heals for 100%, the second HOT for 90%, third for 80%, and so on.


I honestly think its not enough, but lets start slowly.

SgtWinnie

subarctic wrote: »

RIP PACT EU/PC

Unorganized pact before update was already butchered more or less by the ball groups of AD and DC. The motley crew and wonderful abnormies of the Pact are not mentally able it seems to organize a ball group. After U41 we’ll be pigs for slaughter. oink oink

Or maybe they don't want to be like these other idiots.
I don't care about ball groups at all. They are easy enough to avoid and like kids coming off a sugar high eventually get bored and go back to pulling wings off flies or whatever makes them happy.
What it does do however is stop people who are interested in PVP and come in to try it out get discouraged and leave. Especially if there is no organized defense or strategy to combat these groups.

Hard to boost numbers in PVP if it's just ball groups. It is boring watching them run around keep walls wiping them clean of the people who ignored advice not to chase them.
Coupled with this company not giving a toss about the PVP community it makes for some pretty bland gameplay.

sarahthes

dmnqwk wrote: »

Garamant wrote: »

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

Unorganized mobs up to a certain size won't stand much of a chance in any case, because of that missing coordination, no matter the sets.

Haven't played in ballgroups that much yet, but to my knowledge the bonesurge skill and the mender's ward set, do similar things like these two new sets do, already. So you might nerf Blind Path Induction to work on the wielder only, but they will just change to other sets with major vitality and group heals.

Buffing anything else to counter shield, be it oblivion damage, or sets like shield breaker, will be detrimental for sorc survivability (single or small groups), which should definitely not happen.

At the same time, effects which benefit multiple people in pvp should be limited in the number it can affect - from everyone down to 3 allies. Heals, shields, buffs etc should only affect 3 people (10 second timer if it affects individually on a personal cooldown).

They also should not stack.

Araneae6537

sarahthes wrote: »

dmnqwk wrote: »

Garamant wrote: »

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

Unorganized mobs up to a certain size won't stand much of a chance in any case, because of that missing coordination, no matter the sets.

Haven't played in ballgroups that much yet, but to my knowledge the bonesurge skill and the mender's ward set, do similar things like these two new sets do, already. So you might nerf Blind Path Induction to work on the wielder only, but they will just change to other sets with major vitality and group heals.

Buffing anything else to counter shield, be it oblivion damage, or sets like shield breaker, will be detrimental for sorc survivability (single or small groups), which should definitely not happen.

At the same time, effects which benefit multiple people in pvp should be limited in the number it can affect - from everyone down to 3 allies. Heals, shields, buffs etc should only affect 3 people (10 second timer if it affects individually on a personal cooldown).

They also should not stack.

No, there should still be heals, buffs, and shields that effect up to 11 allies — trials are a thing after all — but I agree they should not stack more than twice, maybe not at all if they’re the same effect / source.

StihlReign

This won't be fixed. SITS and lots of other armor sets have been nerfed to encourage supergroups.

Cyrodiil is designed for group and large-scale play. 12-man groups are too small. Grouping isn't supposed to mean - unkillable, and it shouldn't require half an alliance to kill 10-12.

Until the combat team forms a group and tries to kill a comped group - don't expect Cyrodiil to provide combat that isn't incredibly slanted toward unkillable builds and groups.

Look at PvE - the armor choices have stats that give large boosts to healing, damage done and damage mitigated against monsters - it's a dungeon!

EXAMPLE

5 items: Increases your healing received by 10% for you and up to 11 group members within 10 meters of you. This bonus persists through death.

5 items: You and group members within 28 meters of you gain Major Fortitude, Major Intellect, and Major Endurance, increasing your Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery by 30%.

5 items: When you take damage while you are under 50% Health, summon Ursus's spirit for 6 seconds at a random group member. You or a group member can activate a synergy on Ursus to grant a shield that protects up to 6 group members within a 28 meter radius from 13967 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

This isn't really an armor issue (except we keep getting terrible armors) - its a group dynamic and baseline stats issue. Healing/heal stacking/HOTs was (and is broken) and so now are shields. One could argue most group armors do not encourage good group play - the armors simply mask the ability to play well as a group.

Most likely solution - lower pop caps...

frogthroat

Garamant wrote: »

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

I agree with this. It's not particularly fun to play against an organised ball group, especially because I usually play alone, or in a small group. But as the game modes allow for bigger groups, if you are willing to put the time and effort to have a well organised and optimised group, you should reap the benefits of it. Sucks for us, but as long as the game mode is free for all Cyro, ball groups shine.

One solution could be different Cyro modes, like in Rust. Single, duo, group of 4, full 12 people group, for example. But even that would go a bit against the idea of Cyro.

TechMaybeHic

Shieldbreaker could really use a buff. The increased damage against shields is not enough to justify over just doing more damage in general. Needs oblivion damage added back on top and add proxy det scaling

StihlReign

Nerf the Armors, fix HOTs.

Keep it simple.

Adding/buffing more armor to fix a stats issue creates more bad armor.

gvgisdi

Time to bring back old shield breaker set, where resto and lightning heavies proc on every tic

TechMaybeHic

StihlReign wrote: »

Nerf the Armors, fix HOTs.

Keep it simple.

Adding/buffing more armor to fix a stats issue creates more bad armor.

Usually I agree, but they insist on releasing new sets every quarter with more and more off the wall ideas to try to find something new. Might as well be that each set has a potential problem as a drawback if someone is running some other weird set rather than a cut an dry new set is simply a playstyle buff with now downside

StihlReign

2019:

Shield Breaker: Redesigned this item set so it no longer deals damage when you Light Attack a target with a shield active. Now, it increases your damage dealt by 6% at all times. This effect is doubled when attacking targets with a damage shield active.

Decrease Health Enchant (Oblivion damage): Reduced the damage of this enchant by 33%.
Developer Comment:
Spoiler
Since these enchantments bypass Battle Spirit and other forms of mitigation such as Resistances and Block, these are far stronger than standard elemental damage proc enchantments like Fiery Weapon. This is the first step to better balance the interaction of Oblivion Damage in the game on player abilities; in a future update, we plan to introduce a scaling mechanism so these enchantments may be better suited to taking down high health targets to meet their intended goal.

sarahthes

StihlReign wrote: »

This won't be fixed. SITS and lots of other armor sets have been nerfed to encourage supergroups.

Cyrodiil is designed for group and large-scale play. 12-man groups are too small. Grouping isn't supposed to mean - unkillable, and it shouldn't require half an alliance to kill 10-12.

Until the combat team forms a group and tries to kill a comped group - don't expect Cyrodiil to provide combat that isn't incredibly slanted toward unkillable builds and groups.

Look at PvE - the armor choices have stats that give large boosts to healing, damage done and damage mitigated against monsters - it's a dungeon!

EXAMPLE

5 items: Increases your healing received by 10% for you and up to 11 group members within 10 meters of you. This bonus persists through death.

5 items: You and group members within 28 meters of you gain Major Fortitude, Major Intellect, and Major Endurance, increasing your Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery by 30%.

5 items: When you take damage while you are under 50% Health, summon Ursus's spirit for 6 seconds at a random group member. You or a group member can activate a synergy on Ursus to grant a shield that protects up to 6 group members within a 28 meter radius from 13967 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

This isn't really an armor issue (except we keep getting terrible armors) - its a group dynamic and baseline stats issue. Healing/heal stacking/HOTs was (and is broken) and so now are shields. One could argue most group armors do not encourage good group play - the armors simply mask the ability to play well as a group.

Most likely solution - lower pop caps...

The one thing I have to point out here... PvE groups don't use sets that stack heals and shields, and don't even really use any that buff group resists unless there's another reason to use them (like pearlescent ward). Healing in PvE is so overtuned we don't need them.

Scaletho

More Ball group buffs? yeah this is so precious, ZOS. congrats to dig a bigger hole for Cyrodiil's pvp.

CGPsaint

Comment deleted as my views and opinions are not relevant to ZoS.

Sluggy

Garamant wrote: »

Groups should not be punished for being well organized in everything, from sets, to skills, to timing.

Unorganized mobs up to a certain size won't stand much of a chance in any case, because of that missing coordination, no matter the sets.

Haven't played in ballgroups that much yet, but to my knowledge the bonesurge skill and the mender's ward set, do similar things like these two new sets do, already. So you might nerf Blind Path Induction to work on the wielder only, but they will just change to other sets with major vitality and group heals.

Buffing anything else to counter shield, be it oblivion damage, or sets like shield breaker, will be detrimental for sorc survivability (single or small groups), which should definitely not happen.

The trouble with that thought process is that it discourages absolutely anyone new from even considering PvP after the first few minutes. Once they see this sort of thing almost anyone will likely consider it an impenetrable barrier.

I've said it before but I guess it needs to be re-iterated again and again. There's nothing wrong with organized group play. But when you already have every meta-game advantage via voice chat as well as coordinated and practiced maneuvers adding in-game mechanical advantages that make you invulnerable to nearly everything really does push it beyond sensible. And be honest with yourselves, there are a number of ballgroups out there that play absolutely terribly and yet they will never fear anything because these mechanical advantages still keep them mostly invulnerable.

ArchMikem

There should be a "Barrier Detonation" ability that causes a spell feedback, making the Target take as much damage as the shield blocks. Using a dmg shield in PvP should be a risk, of the chance it'll blow up in your face.

fizl101

ArchMikem wrote: »

There should be a "Barrier Detonation" ability that causes a spell feedback, making the Target take as much damage as the shield blocks. Using a dmg shield in PvP should be a risk, of the chance it'll blow up in your face.

Have enemy shields touching each other go boom like the shields on the first boss in dreadsail reef