PVP is completely broken

DTStormfox · June 2024

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

Nharimlur_Finor · June 2024

DTStormfox wrote: »

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

With reference to your title, I can't tell if PvP is broken or not. I don't choose to play that part of the game.

With reference to the content of your post, I read many posts where players ask for harder content. Now you have it.

Olen_Mikko · June 2024

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

moderatelyfatman · June 2024

Ravenwatch has been abandoned for a long time now outside of primetime.

Desiato · June 2024

Honestly, it's the worst pvp I've ever played.

They like to give pvp lip service in patch notes sometimes, but the reality is that 99% of combat changes are made with pve goals in mind. Particularly in terms of raising the floor and lowering the ceiling. They don't even really care about pve balance. Their goal is to elevate certain kinds of players so content is more accessible to them.

There's no quick and easy fix IMO. It's completely butchered.

I love AvA and want to play it, but when I think about actually doing it, I get flashbacks of things like 10 minute 1v1s, HoT tank ball groups, troll sieging troll tanks, sorcs, 40k hp healbot wardens, etc and literally get sick to my stomach.

It's basically pvp for people who don't really like pvp because they can't stand dying.

xylena_lazarow · June 2024

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really.

Those "unkillable" Sorcs aren't troll tanks, they're teleporting ranged nuke DDs. Ward is a problem.

Tsuriel · June 2024

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Pretty much. Ballgroups keep progressively ruining PvP with each patch and chapter released.

And to think ESO was first introduced and advertised as a PvP game, one could truly say that they've more or less abandoned that sphere completely.

Desiato · June 2024

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Not if you actually want to engage in the alliance war because troll tanks will sometimes troll siege and flag keeps so they can draw players to them so they can engage in their goal of not dying or killing anything while fighting with others in a pvp game......

The same applies to ball groups. Sure, you can ignore them if you don't care about the map at all. But then, why are you playing? Either to pug stomp or stalemate against other decent players most of the time.

worst. pvp. ever.

ProudMary · June 2024

Tsuriel wrote: »

show previous quotes

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Pretty much. Ballgroups keep progressively ruining PvP with each patch and chapter released.

And to think ESO was first introduced and advertised as a PvP game, one could truly say that they've more or less abandoned that sphere completely.

Yep. ZOS has done nothing but lower the population caps in Cyrodiil and move those server resources to other parts of the game for the last 5 years or so. Today's population caps are literally 10% of what they were originally. They keep adding content and spreading the game thinner and thinner over the same server resources. Now we have massive problems with disconnects, lag etc.

silky_soft · June 2024

Just play bg, get a knockback from the new skills. Knock them off the ledges. Contingency is pretty good, activates on any cost including breakfree and Dodge.

jaws343 · June 2024

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

show previous quotes

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really.

Those "unkillable" Sorcs aren't troll tanks, they're teleporting ranged nuke DDs. Ward is a problem.

As the op mentioned 60k hp.. a 60k hp sorc isn't nuking anything. You pretty much have to dump every single thing into HP to do that. I have a 65k HP 1 bar build for Archive and the only reason it even functions is a mix of oakensoul/empower and focused efforts. Outside of that it struggles killing overland enemies in a reasonable time.

NxJoeyD · February 9

I agree with some of the other contributors here. Sorcs are alright but they’re not your issue; they’re not an execute class.

What I’m seeing in PvP that’s causing the “break” is mitigation! I’m consistently seeing builds that are literally just standing there, absorbing stupid amounts of damage without a shield, without blocking.

If I can lay a crap ton of direct damage, DoTs, & breach, then follow up with a 50k+ Ult (including Battle Spirit) and I watch your health bar barley budge something is wrong. And to make matters worse we have builds like that which can deal stupid physical damage. It would be bad enough to be near unkillable but to be unkillable and deal high damage is bonkers.

Listen, I’ve seen persistent healers hold their ground, I get that; no issue with that. I’ve seen stacking shields and health proc sets; I’m ok with all of that because they’re temporary and a part of a players calculated rotation. Deflecting damage by just standing there is crazy how any Devs tested this and said “yep, this makes sense”.

I have read one of the other, detailed, threads outlining mitigation issues and I don’t know if the nuisances from that have finally made their way into a more broken PvP player base or what the real issue is but I’m seeing more and more examples of this whereby we’ve got players that are natively unkillable unless you’ve got a mob squad on them AND they can deal damage.

ZoS you’ve gotta pick one or the other; either builds can be tank walls and deal enough damage to get by or they can deal high damage but have a loss of durability but not both. PvP is atrocious

RebornV3x · February 10

Ive been here off and on since 2015 and I can say without a doubt this is the worst PVP meta we've ever had I can't understand how anyone from the dev team looks at PVP in its current state and is like "yeah this is fine" no its not unkillable ball groups and unkillable players are BORING.

90% of my fights in Cyrodill I just get bored and run off. If I don't die or kill someone in the first 10 seconds the fight will last 5+ minutes and EVERY small scale fight is like this not to mention all the unkillable 12 mans just running around like how is this fun for anyone killing noobs, bad kids or ganking individual players as a 12 man group over and over just whats the point how do you have fun for extended periods doing this.

My time in Cyrodill goes like this
1 fight someone
2. Neither me nor my opponent die after the 1st 15 seconds
3. Fight until a group arrives or fight for 5+ minutes
4. get bored and leave
5. start form step 1

barney2525 · February 10

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Here's the thing. A bunch of players like PvP. A bunch of players don't. The problem is - The players like me who don't do PvP have no idea what the PvP code words mean. So It's hard for us to understand exactly what the issue is, and offer any solutions.

I understand that the PvP players know exactly what you were talking about. But I have no idea what a Troll Build is or what a Ball Group is.

So it's hard to be sympathetic.

Xarc · February 10

I have no problem with tanks.
The problem is when tanks are not only tanks, but can kill everybody too.

ThetaSigma · February 10

For people complaining about ball groups its very simple. Get yourself a group and just ball group back, a lot of effort goes into these so called ball groups which includes farming sets, mythics and being on voice so you've got good co-ordination. Only then for people to come along and whine that they're getting toasted, I just don't understand.

Me personally I don't PvP but if I did I'd want to ball group because it looks fun killing all the daft headless chickens.

Turtle_Bot · February 10

barney2525 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Here's the thing. A bunch of players like PvP. A bunch of players don't. The problem is - The players like me who don't do PvP have no idea what the PvP code words mean. So It's hard for us to understand exactly what the issue is, and offer any solutions.

I understand that the PvP players know exactly what you were talking about. But I have no idea what a Troll Build is or what a Ball Group is.

So it's hard to be sympathetic.

Troll build:
A "troll build" is typically a very tanky build that has been created to survive being attacked by many players at once for a long time. Typically they have no damage and are not a threat outside of being annoying and keeping players stuck in combat.

Ball group:
A "Ball group" is basically an organized PvP raid group. Think something similar to a top end PvE trial group, but instead of fighting NPCs with 100's of millions of health they fight other players with 30-40k health.

A few others include:

Bomber:
A "bomber" is a build (typically on a Nightblade, but not always) that is super glass cannon (full damage, no survivability) with a big AoE burst combo that can instantly wipe groups of players that are stacked up.

Xer:
Typically a highly mechanically skilled player (or duo/trio) that builds and tries to fight outnumbered fights. They are often fairly tanky, but the main difference between them and a troll build is they don't invest everything into defense and maintain enough damage to still kill other players. They make up for the lack of raw defense by using mechanics like line of sight and movement speed to avoid incoming attacks.

Zerg:
Typically a large, unorganized (and mostly casual) group of players. Usually majority of these players are more casual.

Faction stack:
An extremely large zerg, basically the entire (or near enough) faction population of players that partially coordinate to attempt to take highly defended objectives. This used to be how the zergs would attempt to fight ball groups, but the dwindling population caps have become too small to make this feasible anymore.

Ganker:
Think an assassin (typically a Nightblade, but there have been others in the past), that strikes from invisibility/stealth and attempts to stack enough damage into a single burst of damage to instantly kill their target.

Small scale:
A smaller version of a ball group. Can also just be a small group of a few friends, but will typically be fairly organized. Think something similar to a 4 person PvE dungeon group instead of the full scale 12 person trial group.

Hope this helps to clarify some of the common terms PvPers use when talking about specific builds/playstyles.

BXR_Lonestar · February 10

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Ballgroups aren't even the problem. Ball groups are just the defense for being zerged down. When another alliance routinely outnumbers you by 1 or more bars, having a good ballgroup is pretty much the only way you can be competitive. 2 or more groups working together? I've only ever seen that with other factions targeting my group (at least in my campaign). Otherwise, the ballgroups tend to divide and conquer the map if there is no resistance because it is the fastest way to increase your potential points.

IMO, the real problems with cyrodil are:

1. Sick incentives to try to "kill the map" so to speak to maximize your potential points.

2. Building on point 1, that also means there is a sick incentive to zerg the map when there is less resistance so you can hold it the longest and get the most points (disincentivizing fights).

3. No cure for imbalanced teams/fights. It seems that there is always one faction that has more players, and unless you have an organized ballgroup, there isn't really much you can do. Killboxing a keep is helpful if everyone cooperates, but that is a big "IF."

4. No incentive to play when you are badly outnumbered. If you are outnumbered, there is literally no incentive to play. It's not fun to get killed outnumbered over and over and over again, you don't earn any AP for it, and you're not helping your faction.

I have some thoughts on some potential fixes, but I don't have time to address them all this morning. I'll have to follow up on this later.

Kelenan7368 · February 10

I disagree! You are just not very good at PVP!
I play all the time I win mostly but sometimes get owned.
Sometime a win is a real challenge and hard fought other times a breeze.
If you are getting owned a lot ask players how to make a better build.
PVP for me is mostly fun I don't like to get own but from time to time it happens.
If it happens a lot I change up my build.

Quit calling for nerfs! Find what you are good at!

PVP works Great! For all classes.

sans-culottes · February 10

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

I disagree! You are just not very good at PVP!
I play all the time I win mostly but sometimes get owned.
Sometime a win is a real challenge and hard fought other times a breeze.
If you are getting owned a lot ask players how to make a better build.
PVP for me is mostly fun I don't like to get own but from time to time it happens.
If it happens a lot I change up my build.

Quit calling for nerfs! Find what you are good at!

PVP works Great! For all classes.

That’s right, Necromancers are totally balanced well and just as competitive and effective as Arcanists, Nightblades, and Sorcerers!

Lixiviant · February 10

Are ball groups lethal? Definitely. But don't knock them like they are a bunch of 12 yos running around amok.

They have communication between the players that is impressive. Have I been run over by one of these? Hell, yes.

Just see if anyone in your guild plays PVP seriously or join a PVP guild if you really want to venture into Cyrodiil.

AvalonRanger · February 10

DTStormfox wrote: »

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

This is the very reason why I don't want to play ESO PVP contents.
This is the most stupid PVP game I've ever seen. No thanks seriously.
Too much dated game design, bad direction game design, and basically boring.

AvalonRanger · February 10

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

show previous quotes

barney2525 wrote: »

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Here's the thing. A bunch of players like PvP. A bunch of players don't. The problem is - The players like me who don't do PvP have no idea what the PvP code words mean. So It's hard for us to understand exactly what the issue is, and offer any solutions.

I understand that the PvP players know exactly what you were talking about. But I have no idea what a Troll Build is or what a Ball Group is.

So it's hard to be sympathetic.

Troll build:
A "troll build" is typically a very tanky build that has been created to survive being attacked by many players at once for a long time. Typically they have no damage and are not a threat outside of being annoying and keeping players stuck in combat.

Ball group:
A "Ball group" is basically an organized PvP raid group. Think something similar to a top end PvE trial group, but instead of fighting NPCs with 100's of millions of health they fight other players with 30-40k health.

A few others include:

Bomber:
A "bomber" is a build (typically on a Nightblade, but not always) that is super glass cannon (full damage, no survivability) with a big AoE burst combo that can instantly wipe groups of players that are stacked up.

Xer:
Typically a highly mechanically skilled player (or duo/trio) that builds and tries to fight outnumbered fights. They are often fairly tanky, but the main difference between them and a troll build is they don't invest everything into defense and maintain enough damage to still kill other players. They make up for the lack of raw defense by using mechanics like line of sight and movement speed to avoid incoming attacks.

Zerg:
Typically a large, unorganized (and mostly casual) group of players. Usually majority of these players are more casual.

Faction stack:
An extremely large zerg, basically the entire (or near enough) faction population of players that partially coordinate to attempt to take highly defended objectives. This used to be how the zergs would attempt to fight ball groups, but the dwindling population caps have become too small to make this feasible anymore.

Ganker:
Think an assassin (typically a Nightblade, but there have been others in the past), that strikes from invisibility/stealth and attempts to stack enough damage into a single burst of damage to instantly kill their target.

Small scale:
A smaller version of a ball group. Can also just be a small group of a few friends, but will typically be fairly organized. Think something similar to a 4 person PvE dungeon group instead of the full scale 12 person trial group.

Hope this helps to clarify some of the common terms PvPers use when talking about specific builds/playstyles.

Then...why developer didn't made fixed playable character like the basic hero style team PVP game?
Why developer let us use PVE player character as PVP player?

Everything of ESO PVP is wrong as basic PVP game design.

shadyjane62 · February 11

RebornV3x wrote: »

Ive been here off and on since 2015 and I can say without a doubt this is the worst PVP meta we've ever had I can't understand how anyone from the dev team looks at PVP in its current state and is like "yeah this is fine" no its not unkillable ball groups and unkillable players are BORING.

90% of my fights in Cyrodill I just get bored and run off. If I don't die or kill someone in the first 10 seconds the fight will last 5+ minutes and EVERY small scale fight is like this not to mention all the unkillable 12 mans just running around like how is this fun for anyone killing noobs, bad kids or ganking individual players as a 12 man group over and over just whats the point how do you have fun for extended periods doing this.

My time in Cyrodill goes like this
1 fight someone
2. Neither me nor my opponent die after the 1st 15 seconds
3. Fight until a group arrives or fight for 5+ minutes
4. get bored and leave
5. start form step 1

This is my game except I skip steps 3, 4, and 5. I just leave and go play another game. Freecell is more rewarding than pvp in eso.

They should fix it or kill it.

SaffronCitrusflower · February 11

AvalonRanger wrote: »

show previous quotes

DTStormfox wrote: »

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

This is the very reason why I don't want to play ESO PVP contents.
This is the most stupid PVP game I've ever seen. No thanks seriously.
Too much dated game design, bad direction game design, and basically boring.

ESO had the best PvP in any game ever. The unique combat system is awesome. (no tab targeting etc.). It's a real shame ZOS hasn't invested enough into the system to keep it going, and now they're going in the direction of template based PvP, which will fail if implemented as the only option.

BXR_Lonestar · February 12

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

show previous quotes

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Unkillable troll builds aren't the issue really. You can just choose to ignore them.

2-3 ballgroups running simultaneously and ZOS doing nothing to hinder them, is the real issue.

Ballgroups aren't even the problem. Ball groups are just the defense for being zerged down. When another alliance routinely outnumbers you by 1 or more bars, having a good ballgroup is pretty much the only way you can be competitive. 2 or more groups working together? I've only ever seen that with other factions targeting my group (at least in my campaign). Otherwise, the ballgroups tend to divide and conquer the map if there is no resistance because it is the fastest way to increase your potential points.

IMO, the real problems with cyrodil are:

1. Sick incentives to try to "kill the map" so to speak to maximize your potential points.

2. Building on point 1, that also means there is a sick incentive to zerg the map when there is less resistance so you can hold it the longest and get the most points (disincentivizing fights).

3. No cure for imbalanced teams/fights. It seems that there is always one faction that has more players, and unless you have an organized ballgroup, there isn't really much you can do. Killboxing a keep is helpful if everyone cooperates, but that is a big "IF."

4. No incentive to play when you are badly outnumbered. If you are outnumbered, there is literally no incentive to play. It's not fun to get killed outnumbered over and over and over again, you don't earn any AP for it, and you're not helping your faction.

I have some thoughts on some potential fixes, but I don't have time to address them all this morning. I'll have to follow up on this later.

So these are the things that I think are possible fixes for these issues. I'm not throwing these out there that this is what "MUST" be done, but any combination of one or more of these things I think probably addresses the issues I identified:

1. Campaign Score should be a combination of points for objectives PLUS points for kills. This means that a faction can't win a campaign alone by simply getting online when other players aren't playing to take an empty map.

2. Weight the points awarded for objectives based on whether there was actually resistance to take the objective. Meaning resistance from players, not guards alone.

3. Decrease the power of zergs by giving outnumbered buffs/debuffs to even out fights regardless of whether you have a numerical advantage. I think this is an absolute must because it gets really old fighting night after night after night when you are rountinely outnumbered by a large margin. It doesn't need to be enough to allow 10 players to conquer 50, but it needs to be enough to give those 10 players a fighting chance to go take objectives before the zerg shows up to swamp them. Perhaps by getting hit with major debuffs when you vastly outnumber your opponents, you create the incentive in the player base to try to have approximate even numbers in the factions.

4. Allow us to see how many players are actually playing on each alliance at the time. Nobody knows what the bars mean. Just give us the raw numbers instead.

5. And give the Double AP bonus to players who stick it out and fight outnumbered and against the odds. This should be triggered based on population numbers, not campaign score (for those who don't know, if an alliance has double your score, you earn double AP).

Those are just a few suggestions I'd like to toss out there.

sans-culottes · February 12

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

show previous quotes

AvalonRanger wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

This is the very reason why I don't want to play ESO PVP contents.
This is the most stupid PVP game I've ever seen. No thanks seriously.
Too much dated game design, bad direction game design, and basically boring.

ESO had the best PvP in any game ever. The unique combat system is awesome. (no tab targeting etc.). It's a real shame ZOS hasn't invested enough into the system to keep it going, and now they're going in the direction of template based PvP, which will fail if implemented as the only option.

I respectfully disagree. Any number of games have more effective combat systems. See, e.g., Elden Ring, Dragon’s Dogma 2. The opposition to targeting mechanisms and cooldowns has never made sense to me.

Major_Mangle · February 12

sans-culottes wrote: »

show previous quotes

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Unkillable sorcs, unkillable arcanists...

Who in their mind thought it was a good idea to buff sorcs and arcanists even more? Sorc, for example, was already very powerful in PVP. But no, lets give their shield a massive heal that scales with max health, so we can have 60k health sorcs run around that are unkillable...

The EU Ravenwatch, for example, is completely abandoned now, because there are literally unkillable players in the server. Nobody wants to play with or against them anymore.

This is the very reason why I don't want to play ESO PVP contents.
This is the most stupid PVP game I've ever seen. No thanks seriously.
Too much dated game design, bad direction game design, and basically boring.

ESO had the best PvP in any game ever. The unique combat system is awesome. (no tab targeting etc.). It's a real shame ZOS hasn't invested enough into the system to keep it going, and now they're going in the direction of template based PvP, which will fail if implemented as the only option.

I respectfully disagree. Any number of games have more effective combat systems. See, e.g., Elden Ring, Dragon’s Dogma 2. The opposition to targeting mechanisms and cooldowns has never made sense to me.

As a big fan of Dragon's Dogma (the first game was fantastic) I can say that Dragon's Dogma 2 and it's combat system ain't that special. Similar to games like Witcher 3, ones you've fought an enemy type for the first time there is no unique or interesting approach to similar fights and it becomes super repetitive really quickly. Only good aspect of DD2 was the world building (which was fantastic), everything else was a major disappointment (the sphinx is honestly the most unique and interesting encounter in the entire game).

From an MMO perspective and combat I've yet to play any game that comes close to ESO's. All classic mmos feels like turned based combat compared to eso, and the reactive/"prediction based combat" and fast paced nature of eso is what makes it unique and fun, especially from a PvP perspective.

sans-culottes · February 12

See, its spammy style is exactly what I and many others find to be among its weakest qualities.

I mentioned Elden Ring and Dragon’s Dogma precisely because I think their combat systems—which would also undoubtedly qualify as “action combat” per ESO’s marketing team—are generally much better and more impactful than ESO’s.

More traditional MMOs, or even those with combat systems very similar to ESO’s but with sensible cooldowns, show this is doable (thinking Neverwinter, New World—both highly flawed games in their own ways) without adopting, say, WoW’s style.

moo_2021 · February 12

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Then...why developer didn't made fixed playable character like the basic hero style team PVP game?
Why developer let us use PVE player character as PVP player?

Why don't you like the freedom to make cool builds by unlimited combinations from hundreds of sets, enchants, traits and abilities?

Xarc wrote: »

I have no problem with tanks.
The problem is when tanks are not only tanks, but can kill everybody too.

is a perfect example of engineering ingenuity.

There are also players who make you kill yourself by healing or wearing too much armor.

NxJoeyD · February 21

Xarc wrote: »

I have no problem with tanks.
The problem is when tanks are not only tanks, but can kill everybody too.

is a perfect example of engineering ingenuity.

There are also players who make you kill yourself by healing or wearing too much armor.

Not quite an example of engineering ingenuity; let me explain.

First, these damaging tank builds are becoming a dime a dozen because of the available tutorials content creators are posting which tell them specifically how to. It’s not as though a large portion of the player base is becoming observant in game mechanics.

Further, it’s clearly (and I do mean CLEARLY) evident that ZoS hasn’t evolved each of the classes to be counter-competitive.

These murderous tanks don’t have broad counters in which to defeat them. This means that if you want to be competitive against them the only two choices are a melee-train mob against the sole tank (which isn’t always realistic) or one of the few “metas” that might be able to counter in that way.

Funneling gameplay into a handful of meta builds doesn’t make for the creativity you, myself, and others speak of. When your choices are either play the meta or lose, well, there goes a good bit of the gameplay value.

Now, to fix this there’s numerous ways ZoS could combat this. If we want to have tanks with strong kill absolutes, fine, I’m ok with that … but if so, then ZoS needs to take a really good look at all of the classes; their abilities & passives and really think about how each would complement the overall gameplay; not just in the vacuum of themselves.

This doesn’t mean that “every class would be the same” so I don’t want to hear that. Balanced does not mean same; not even close.

But what we’re lacking here, in a lot of places, is the creative evolution of the classes to keep pace with gameplay changes. If ZoS either doesn’t know how or realistically can’t clean up their mitigation mechanical debacles then so be it; instead; take a look at the classes & gear sets to better fit within the game environment they’ve created.

This isn’t really hard to do they just need to, do it.

You want a diverse group of classes, builds, & roles in the game and while I don’t expect any one to be perfect; there’s no reason we can’t fix what’s currently broken.