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

RetPing

How can you guys still have the will to play in Cyro is beyond my imagination.

War, war never changes.
Not with these developers.

Necrotech_Master

Jaraal wrote: »

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?

15 meters or less is +dmg shields
more than 15 meters is +healing

the wording is a little weird

doesurmindglow

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.

Ideas like this are actually how we ended up with ball groups. Examples:

Vicious Death
Plaguebreak
Dark Convergence
Jerall Mountains
Rushing Agony

We made purge explosive, so ball groups started running HOT stacks and weaponizing purge to blow up less organized players. We nerfed HOT stacks, so ball groups started running damage shields and weaponizing the fact pugs could no longer heal.

I'm sure making damage shields explosive will work though! This one's the one!

doesurmindglow

I do agree with the OP though, adding yet another set to buff already unkillable ball groups was not a smart decision.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

TechMaybeHic

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

Well; people do not want to just run around in a cluster spamming HOTs and mindlessly run over players. I get it. Coordination and all that. But it does eliminate the entire combat of countering burst and blocking, and roll dodging, and looking for burst windows and replaces it with "just stay together with HOTs stacked and ulti dump when called"

I also find it amusing to call out PvDoor when that vast majority of ball groups want to pvdoor into a Keep so they can just run around the walls. LOL Seriously?

RetPing

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps .

Or maybe people devoted to balance the game and make it fair and fun to play could take a look on the crutch all ballgroups base their gameplay, aka healing stacking.

You don't need to optimize much whern you have such a broken mechanic, a toddler could play in a ball group by just following crown and spamming healz.

acastanza_ESO

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

No. I can't name and shame here but 30 million in shields in a 20 minute fight with people able to cast a barrier literally every 20 seconds is not overcomeable. This is actual logged fight data. It is actually mathematically impossible to counter, let alone with a group of similar size and coordination. It is broken and indefensible.

sarahthes

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

No. I can't name and shame here but 30 million in shields in a 20 minute fight with people able to cast a barrier literally every 20 seconds is not overcomeable. This is actual logged fight data. It is actually mathematically impossible to counter, let alone with a group of similar size and coordination. It is broken and indefensible.

I think the solution is probably to not allow stacking of more than 2-3 of each healy shieldy thing. This prevents nerfs from impacting PvE (which runs 2ish healers, 3 on Ansuul HM) while helping to rein in PvP a little.

OtarTheMad

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

That's just not fun for some people, being in a ball group. A long time ago we had options, you could be in a coordinated ball group which focused mostly on farming pugs and AP, you could be in a coordinated group that was more about the map, you could be in a group that was "coordinated" and worked the map but weren't strict with sets or abilities on bars, you could be in a pug group, you could be in a faction stack. However, now it just seems you have solo/small groups, faction stacks/pugs and ball groups... that's it. Not everyone thinks being in a ball group is fun, I was in one for a time and it was boring. You HAVE to have sets A,B,C and you HAVE to be in discord but say nothing except when you drop ult, you HAVE to stay on crown or get kicked... it's boring.

Also, when did PvDoor become a swear? For a long time that was a valid strategy for alliances who were outnumbered and wanted to get points and earn AP. It's no wonder why when one alliance outnumbers another players just leave the campaign versus just PvDooring to confuse and split the enemy... you get chewed out in zone now. I mean honestly, that is the best strategy against an alliance who has more than you and faction stacks. Split up your attacks, divide them up and make them choose what to do and what to defend but now such things are like saying a swear in church. It's weird to me. Also, ball groups PvDoor ALL the time just to do Nascar: Tamriel Edition and get wiped.

master_vanargand

Game creators, please don't try to become invulnerable in PvP.
PvP where players don't die is garbage.

Panthermic

sarahthes wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

No. I can't name and shame here but 30 million in shields in a 20 minute fight with people able to cast a barrier literally every 20 seconds is not overcomeable. This is actual logged fight data. It is actually mathematically impossible to counter, let alone with a group of similar size and coordination. It is broken and indefensible.

I think the solution is probably to not allow stacking of more than 2-3 of each healy shieldy thing. This prevents nerfs from impacting PvE (which runs 2ish healers, 3 on Ansuul HM) while helping to rein in PvP a little.

The funniest part is that there is a thing that affects PVP only, in Cyrodiil and IC only, called Battle Spirit, but somehow ZOS always decides NOT to use it when they want to nerf something for PVP, they do it directly to the item/set/skill thus it always affect PVE too.

sarahthes

Panthermic wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

No. I can't name and shame here but 30 million in shields in a 20 minute fight with people able to cast a barrier literally every 20 seconds is not overcomeable. This is actual logged fight data. It is actually mathematically impossible to counter, let alone with a group of similar size and coordination. It is broken and indefensible.

I think the solution is probably to not allow stacking of more than 2-3 of each healy shieldy thing. This prevents nerfs from impacting PvE (which runs 2ish healers, 3 on Ansuul HM) while helping to rein in PvP a little.

The funniest part is that there is a thing that affects PVP only, in Cyrodiil and IC only, called Battle Spirit, but somehow ZOS always decides NOT to use it when they want to nerf something for PVP, they do it directly to the item/set/skill thus it always affect PVE too.

I think keeping it outside battle spirit is probably less server intensive. Was thinking of the lag.

EnerG

I think there should be cp and no cp cyro, with alternate servers to each that don't allow groups over say... 4? You could still "ball" together but your sets won't affect everyone. There, ball groups solved xD

Jaraal

OtarTheMad wrote: »

A long time ago we had options

The rise of the ball group started when ZOS deleted 24 person groups.

Semi-organized platoons of 24 were very powerful. They could roll up to a keep and get it lit in seconds. They could push out of one and overpower attackers. They could crush solo and smallman tower farmers quickly. However, a 24 man ball group is not only a lot harder to organize, but it's not really much more effective than a nimble squad of 12.

So, by reducing max group size to 12, ZOS played right into the wheelhouse of the balls. And everything they've done since then (gear and skill-wise) has benefitted them more than the it has the average PUG.

Kavreiss

There's enough shards outside of the crying pickle that i have no need to go there just to get the shards. if i do all the dlc and all the public dungeon in alliance zones and then the alliance zones i'll have all my crafter needs b4 i finish the alliance zones. NO need even to run invisible vamp in the crying pickle...

NoSoup

Do the effects stack? Ie if 12 people are wearing it you get 13% x 12?

TechMaybeHic

NoSoup wrote: »

Do the effects stack? Ie if 12 people are wearing it you get 13% x 12?

You've got the way it works confused. Each wearer has their own heal or shield they cast on other players. Those heals and shields stack. Each person wearing this set has theirs they cast buffed

Pepegrillos

Some of the same peeps were in charge of PvP balance in Warhammer Online, a game that died in part because PvP balance was atrocious.

ForumSavant

People need to understand that no matter what you do, larger groups will always exist, and whatever way you want to nerf them is also going to nerf you to some extent. If you nerf them without nerfing yourself, you are nerfing someone else's playstyle who is probably already solo or with a smaller group. Ballgroups will always adjust to whatever the "meta" is, if you make is so shielding is bad, or another set to counter it, there will always be anothe alternative, and then imagine how much you'd hurt a solo sorc who is getting zerged and needs to spam shield just to run away. In reality, and I get that a lot of you won't understand this, the EXTREMELY SMALL shield from the monster set does next to nothing in PvP. Just like other certain shield sets, they are just log buffers. They provide next to nothing in actual combat. A sub 2k shield every 6 seconds isn't even worth mentioning unless you look at it from the perspective of wanting to farm on logs. The best way to nerf ballgroups effectively is to reduce the amount of HOTs allowed on a single person at a time, because this will only hurt those who have a large group, but then there are probably some implications for PvE, and ZOS usually doesn't balance them independently.

pinkfluffygoat

just give us a set that acts like plague break. only its activates on buffs and damage is increased per buff. boom you have a bomb for ball groups?

Garamant

Sluggy 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.

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.

Hey, I absolutely agree.

I guess in the end its a question of how you want battles in cyrodiil to look like.

We already have sets where their bonus gets gradually weakened the more people are affected it and something like this could be applied here.
If some PvE groups want to use those sets and fear a nerf, then maybe have battle spirit downgrade the set or apply certain penalties which only apply in PvP areas (Just like dmgshields are already halved in PvP).

In the end ZOS has got to figure out how they want PvP in Cyro to look like. However organized group-play and solo sorcs/dmgshield builds should not be punished or made irrelevant by overbuffed/nerfed set or skill-lines.

TybaltKaine

Just prevent shields from stacking from any source and initiate a cooldown shared across all shield sources.

You want a massive shield? Fine, but that's the only shield you get and you have to wait for a set period to get it back, regardless of source.


Promotes more tactical use of shields, stops ball groups from becoming invincible. Problem solved.

Iriidius

Blind Path Induction is not a problem because it only effects your own healing and shielding done and Isn‘t even a groupbuffset because of this.
The Blind however has cooldown only per player and can proc on 12(or even more because it says allies, not teammates) players with full value giving altogether 12+ times the stats and shieldstrength it gives on a solo player and is 12+ times as strong as a solo sets just because you have 12+ players.
12*10% crit dmg = 120% crit dmg from one set.

doesurmindglow wrote: »

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.

Ideas like this are actually how we ended up with ball groups. Examples:

Vicious Death
Plaguebreak
Dark Convergence
Jerall Mountains
Rushing Agony

We made purge explosive, so ball groups started running HOT stacks and weaponizing purge to blow up less organized players. We nerfed HOT stacks, so ball groups started running damage shields and weaponizing the fact pugs could no longer heal.

I'm sure making damage shields explosive will work though! This one's the one!

None of the Sets you mentioned were created to specifically counter ballgroup except maybe plaguebreak, but plaguebreak was also later changed to be used more effektive by ballgroups than against them. It used to explode only whenever purged, then they made it also explode on death like vicious death that only 1 groupmember has to wear and whole ballgroup can use and gave it a cooldown with 50% downtime, so that ballgroups can purge again when it is down.
Jerall Mountain war chief always was and still is a Xv1 Set used by Zergs and rarely Duellists to kill solo players, it is single target.
Ballgroups already used Hot stacks before plaguebreak, with plaguebreak some started using echoing vigor on magicka healer or radiating regen on stamsupport, but only with hybridization 2 updates later it scales with mainstat to its full potential. U35 nerfs to HoTs were not because of ballgroup critics but because ZoS made new Standart for HoTs and adjusted many HoTs including self-only HoTs(resolving Vigor), single-target HoTs(Spirit guardian), multi-target HoTs and ground HoTs.
Resolving Vigor and Rapid Regen only got buffed in a later PTS week after complain from solo players, the first more than the second including reverting the nerf, but originally they got nerfed too.
Shielding got much worse with introduction of Arcanist in update 38, 3 updates after HoT nerf, so ballgroups didn‘t adjustet but got buffed again. When we would revert ballgroup nerfs(most of them indirect), ballgroups would be worse than they were before these nerfs and worse than they have ever been and worse than now too but these nerfs were not that heavy anyway.

Whenever ballgroups get nerfed, ballgroup defenders claim that all ballgroup critics wanted exactly this nerf and thought it would be the killing blow to ballgroups and no other nerf would be needed althought nobody said that, even when it is only a small indirect nerf as byproduct of standartisation to new ZoS standarts.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

This solution is not simple at all, you need to find a big group of decent players with regular playtimes that are all willing to play in a ballgroup, have the right classes and (addons/eso+ to farm the)sets and when you do this you become ballgroup yourself, solve the problem only for yourself (and the players that would otherwise fight the ballgroups you fight) and contribute to the problem for everyone else. I had to leave 2 ballgroups because Family prevented me from always raiding with them and atm I dont play regular anymore and therefore am excluded from playing in a ballgroup anyway.
Also you can still not summon your group whenever you want but have to play as ballgroup during raidtime if there are enemy ballgroups or not and farm non ballgroup players otherwise and have to play without ballgroup if atm is not raidtime.
And some players simply don‘t want to play as a ballgroup.
I and „ EVERYONE that complains about these groups“ definitely don‘t fail to understand that a coordinated 12 man group will always have an advantage over PuGs, it is just a crap argument that something should not get nerfed and keep getting buffed and get even more advantages because it already is overpowered and has an advantage over others, nothing else in ESO gets buffed because it already is too strong.
Maybe you fail to understand that this argument is crap, but probably you understand because otherwise you wouldn‘t have to defend new ballgroup sets so much.
If ballgroups ALWAYS outdo pugs, why do ballgroups immediately need the Blind and other multitarget sets, Heals/Shields, buffs and effects?
Probably because they make difference between a ballgroup beeing able to kill 20 players and a ballgroup beeing able to kill 60 players.
And calling everyone that complains about ballgroups a PvDoorer is

OtarTheMad wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

The solution to killing ball groups is as simple as this:

Put time and effort into making a group of similar size of your own that spends as much time as the ball group optimizing comps and figuring out what days every single member can log in to have fun in a video game and perform at a high level. You are asking the devs to keep nerfing ball groups but what EVERYONE that complains about these groups fails to understand is that a group of 12 coordinated players will ALWAYS outdo a bunch of pugs that don't even want to PvP and they PvDoor instead. All you people do is log into Cyrodiil, PvDoor, get wiped by a ball group and instead of sitting there for a small fraction of your time to think "Hey what can I do to kill and stop this ball group" you instead come to the forums to complain about players being better and more organized than you, basically giving up immediately and telling the devs to do something they've been doing for years.

At the moment there are more ways of killing ball groups than there have ever been, one of them, Azure blight squad. It doesn't take that much time to figure these things out. Learn to play issues from everyone in this post.

That's just not fun for some people, being in a ball group. A long time ago we had options, you could be in a coordinated ball group which focused mostly on farming pugs and AP, you could be in a coordinated group that was more about the map, you could be in a group that was "coordinated" and worked the map but weren't strict with sets or abilities on bars, you could be in a pug group, you could be in a faction stack. However, now it just seems you have solo/small groups, faction stacks/pugs and ball groups... that's it. Not everyone thinks being in a ball group is fun, I was in one for a time and it was boring. You HAVE to have sets A,B,C and you HAVE to be in discord but say nothing except when you drop ult, you HAVE to stay on crown or get kicked... it's boring.

Also, when did PvDoor become a swear? For a long time that was a valid strategy for alliances who were outnumbered and wanted to get points and earn AP. It's no wonder why when one alliance outnumbers another players just leave the campaign versus just PvDooring to confuse and split the enemy... you get chewed out in zone now. I mean honestly, that is the best strategy against an alliance who has more than you and faction stacks. Split up your attacks, divide them up and make them choose what to do and what to defend but now such things are like saying a swear in church. It's weird to me. Also, ball groups PvDoor ALL the time just to do Nascar: Tamriel Edition and get wiped.

So the difference to a long time ago is that there used to be 3 types of coordinated groups, while now there are only ballgroups? The difference I experience is rather that PuGs and Solo play is not an option anymore, because without 24man groups PuGs are too weak too compete with smallscales or organised groups and there are not enaugh group leaders and 1vXing got more difficult/nearly impossible and isnt avoidable, 1v1 often ends in stalemate, so solo players try to join groups but cant just join PuGs because they dont exist anymore, so if they don’t have private group they are forced to either play solo and get punished for it or leave Cyrodiil.

In my experience it is rather the outnumbering alliance PvDooring the outnumbered one either by speedsieging unguarded keeps in the backland without taking ressoursses first, at night/early morning when outnumbered faction is sleeping or after they zerged+bullied all players of the outnumbered faction out of Cyrodiil, often also a combination of those. This is probably reason why it has negative connotation and is used as a swear word. However even when it is done by outnumbered faction, real PvPers don't like it or at least don‘t have fun doing it because it is PvDoor/ PvGuards=PvE and not real competitive PvP.
Also when you’re Alliance is too outnumbered inferior/gatekeeped, It might be detrimental because it gives outnumbering faction keeps to take when otherwise they would get bored on their completely conquered map.

ForumSavant wrote: »

People need to understand that no matter what you do, larger groups will always exist, and whatever way you want to nerf them is also going to nerf you to some extent. If you nerf them without nerfing yourself, you are nerfing someone else's playstyle who is probably already solo or with a smaller group. Ballgroups will always adjust to whatever the "meta" is, if you make is so shielding is bad, or another set to counter it, there will always be anothe alternative, and then imagine how much you'd hurt a solo sorc who is getting zerged and needs to spam shield just to run away. In reality, and I get that a lot of you won't understand this, the EXTREMELY SMALL shield from the monster set does next to nothing in PvP. Just like other certain shield sets, they are just log buffers. They provide next to nothing in actual combat. A sub 2k shield every 6 seconds isn't even worth mentioning unless you look at it from the perspective of wanting to farm on logs. The best way to nerf ballgroups effectively is to reduce the amount of HOTs allowed on a single person at a time, because this will only hurt those who have a large group, but then there are probably some implications for PvE, and ZOS usually doesn't balance them independently.

Changed it to Nightblade, do you still agree?:
People need to understand no matter what you do, Nightblades will always exist, (and whatever way you want to nerf them is also going to nerf you).
Nightblades will always adjust to whatever the "meta" is, if you make is so shielding is bad, or another set to counter it, there will always be another alternative, and then imagine how much you'd hurt a solo sorc who is getting zerged and needs to spam shield just to run away.

The problem is not shielding as a whole, especially not single target shielding, but multitarget shielding and all other multitarget effects including multitarget hots, multitarget burstheals, multitarget sets, multitarget buffskills and multitarget purge that give same effect as single target to multiple targets, this way having altogether multiple times the strength of a selfish set. It is like you drink your 1l water bottle than because you are such a sozial person share empty bottle with your friends who also all drink 1l from it and than as reward they also share their food and drinks with you after eating them themselves, you create multiple dublicates out of nothing insteat of really sharing your food by dividing.

Sluggy

Garamant wrote: »

Sluggy 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.

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.

Hey, I absolutely agree.

I guess in the end its a question of how you want battles in cyrodiil to look like.

We already have sets where their bonus gets gradually weakened the more people are affected it and something like this could be applied here.
If some PvE groups want to use those sets and fear a nerf, then maybe have battle spirit downgrade the set or apply certain penalties which only apply in PvP areas (Just like dmgshields are already halved in PvP).

In the end ZOS has got to figure out how they want PvP in Cyro to look like. However organized group-play and solo sorcs/dmgshield builds should not be punished or made irrelevant by overbuffed/nerfed set or skill-lines.

Personally, I thought no-proc was a step in the right direction. A better approach would have been to only allow sets that buff the wearer's stats and abilities as well as allow only themselves to proc effects. This would encourage skilled play at an individual level where even people inside of groups would need to consider their own needs in order to perform their duties. As it is right now with all of the group-oriented sets there is way to much power sharing. There's no need for a set like hunding's rage when everyone in the group can wear hunding's rage via a single group member. There's no reason to wear Fortified brass when everyone in the group can wear fortified brass. And when you extend these stats to nearly every member of the party at all times it's no wonder they never have to worry about sustain, or speed, or damage, or passive defense, or active defense, or any of that. Because they all individually have stats that would make the heartiest of emperors look anemic by comparison AND THEN on top of that they are twelve people strong.

I can certainly agree that nerfing individual skills of specific classes is not the answer to this specific problem - regardless of how good those skills might be.

ForumBully

Lots of ideas for a problem almost as old as the game itself. But the solution is one that's also been around forever, stop letting heals stack or at a minimum, cap the number of stacks.
Organized groups will always be better, but that one broken mechanic makes them "unkillable".
Sadly, ZOS has heard this option for years and decided to do nothing.

StihlReign

Prox Det
Vicious Death
Plaguebreak
Dark Convergence

All were designed and came about to kill groups.

The easy solution is to remove buffs that provide additional power (damage) and healing to groups. These are handicaps that groups exploit to increase power in both PvE and PvP.

The combat team ignores the most powerful aspect of grouping - communication.

With no buffs, groups by design inherently have added power because of coordination and communication, when targeted toward a shared/common goal.

The simplest example is the NB with the hidden buff friend(s). The gross example is the small/medium-sized groups of 4-12 attacking or healing against any force grouped or ungrouped - and using sets designed to enhance those abilities (and add abilities they would not have), beyond what they would have if solo.

NOTE: If a solo player attacked a group and inherited their group ability buffs, they'd probably be amazed at the ensuing list of new powers.

Artim_X

Make oblivion damage great again! MODGA!

Kavreiss

There's literally nothing you can add to this game to make it better that wouldn't be a benefit to ballgroups if it is a benefit to anyone else. Literally nothing.

Jaraal

WhosTheFancyOneNow wrote: »

There's literally nothing you can add to this game to make it better that wouldn't be a benefit to ballgroups if it is a benefit to anyone else. Literally nothing.

Sets or skills that do damage / reduce healing based on the number of heals or shields stacked on each character would hurt ball groups more than they would PUGs or solos. They had the right idea with Snake in the Stars, but the ridiculous cooldown and overall ineffectiveness of the set makes it a wasted idea that nobody uses.

If you want to see how effective PvP sets are, just look at the prices for each on TTC. SITS and Langour of Peryite are by far the least valuable / desirable. And if the sets don't offer alternative benefits, then literally no solo player is going to be running around wearing a marginal debuff set and killing their own damage capability. Balls require and can absorb role players, whereas trying to fill a niche by yourself is rarely worth the effort.

Until group heal and shield stacking is addressed (by Battle Spirit), the status quo will remain. But sadly, ZOS is going in the opposite direction, by making shields and such that specifically ignore Battle Spirit.