People always navigate to the path of least resistance and optimal return. You can crank up the AP far faster doing AOE than pretty much anything else. If game design allows powerful AOE, players will use it to their benefit. Zen has made AOE quite powerful so there it is. It is not the players fault for operating within the parameters of game design to get optimal returns on their effort.

You'd be surprised how few people in zergs use immovable. It's one of the wonderful flaws of PvP humanity of the belief in safety in numbers tied into the approach of DPSing others down first.

hamon wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Aoe_Barbecue wrote: »

Zergballs are reinforced because if 36 people squeeze into 6 meters and are hit with an AoE, 6 out of 36 will be hit. This ensures that the best way to hide is by moshing with a f*ckton of people in an AoE's radius. If all of those people were subject to focused AoE damage they would spread. Zergballing will still occur because you can focus a lot of firepower that way. But it will be able to be countered with comparatively less people than is optimal now.

Likewise only 6 get healed by the healer. If AoE caps are removed 3-4 healers using Grand Healing and Spell Symmetry could heal a well grouped zerg of 24 for anything between 1.2k -2k hp per sec without breaking a sweat. That's healing received per playe btw.

I'm not so sure it's gonna play out exactly how people like Lowbei expect. Every game is slightly different to the next so it's hard to predict the outcome.

But you never know. In any case, I dislike the randomness of using AoE and not knowing how many people you hit, so I'm all for it.

yes healing could be very powerfull in a cluster as you say .... but just think of the numbers folk would be throwing into that ball from all directions to try to wipe it. in the end it would make splitting up necessary way more often than not. if 20 folk were spread out and throwing aoe into that ball from all directions only insane healing would keep it up.

right now 20 folk throwing massive dps into a ball does feck all cos its only hitting 6 out of the ball at and given point and the heals always target who gets hit.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen the way you say, I'm just saying it's not certain.

There already is a form of AoE that is not capped and that is siege weapons. Which is why a zerg under pressure keeps in constant move. When in constant move it's difficult to direct a lot of fire towards it and thus take it down

Most AoEs are either PBAoEs or if they are ranged AoEs they are damage ticks for each second inside. Obviously PBAoE means you're within the Zerg's range and damage tick AoEs (Lightning Flood, Elemental Wall etc) rely on a pretty static target. Would be interesting to see how it plays out.

Don't neglect the streak and swarm monkeys! And those shield bash spam primates! It's like the damn zoo out there!

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Aoe_Barbecue wrote: »

Zergballs are reinforced because if 36 people squeeze into 6 meters and are hit with an AoE, 6 out of 36 will be hit. This ensures that the best way to hide is by moshing with a f*ckton of people in an AoE's radius. If all of those people were subject to focused AoE damage they would spread. Zergballing will still occur because you can focus a lot of firepower that way. But it will be able to be countered with comparatively less people than is optimal now.

Likewise only 6 get healed by the healer. If AoE caps are removed 3-4 healers using Grand Healing and Spell Symmetry could heal a well grouped zerg of 24 for anything between 1.2k -2k hp per sec without breaking a sweat. That's healing received per playe btw.

I'm not so sure it's gonna play out exactly how people like Lowbei expect. Every game is slightly different to the next so it's hard to predict the outcome.

But you never know. In any case, I dislike the randomness of using AoE and not knowing how many people you hit, so I'm all for it.

yes healing could be very powerfull in a cluster as you say .... but just think of the numbers folk would be throwing into that ball from all directions to try to wipe it. in the end it would make splitting up necessary way more often than not. if 20 folk were spread out and throwing aoe into that ball from all directions only insane healing would keep it up.

right now 20 folk throwing massive dps into a ball does feck all cos its only hitting 6 out of the ball at and given point and the heals always target who gets hit.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen the way you say, I'm just saying it's not certain.

There already is a form of AoE that is not capped and that is siege weapons. Which is why a zerg under pressure keeps in constant move. When in constant move it's difficult to direct a lot of fire towards it and thus take it down

Most AoEs are either PBAoEs or if they are ranged AoEs they are damage ticks for each second inside. Obviously PBAoE means you're within the Zerg's range and damage tick AoEs (Lightning Flood, Elemental Wall etc) rely on a pretty static target. Would be interesting to see how it plays out.

yes the drawback with siege as the only effective ranged aoe only serves to exacerbate the problem. its very slow rate of fire and immobility render it virtually useless against zerg balls.
this is why ive been calling for proper splash effects added to ranged skills. normally you have stuff like chain lightning, splintered arrows, fireballs with instant splash radius damage. warlocks or necros usually have some form of dots that infect within a radius, or mass fears even.
these classic skills from other RPG's all served to punish blobbing for the idiotic tactic it is. even with AOE caps if enough of these moves are coming into a ball it dies. As it stands in ESO with the only meaningfull AOE being PB-AOE , it is hands down the worst game ive ever played for making BLOBBING the most easy way to operate in pvp.

this is in danger of killing the game entirely imo

make a new class exactly like bright wizards from warhammer and watch the blobbs spread out or be obliterated (only joking that would end up with everyone rolling bright wizzys) but give splash to already existing ranged moves that packs punch or remove aoe caps , otherwise theres gonna be nothing but blobs running around soon.

SoulScream wrote: »

Players vs devs on the PTS with no caps, lets get it on!

Honestly, putting a Test Campaign in the special events section would go a long way towards making sure things actually work before a patch goes live.

I'm sure the wizards of the megaserver technology could figure out a way to go between campaigns without logging out of one client and into another

dap_robertb16_ESO wrote: »

Or you could all use Negate and be done with the whole thing.

Drop a few of those in the path of a zerg and snare them with everything you can use as a group (oil, volcanic rune, novas, streak etc) and say "bye bye Mr Zergball".

We get wiped occasionally because of a lack of negates. When we have them we can take down zergs twice our numbers without breaking a sweat.

If you don't like impulse monkey trains, join a guild or a group within PvP (ideally with TS) or just stay out of their way.

There are lots more tactics to take them down that I won't go into here, but look out soon for far fewer zergs.

that speedy uppy buff thing stops slows. unstoppable stops negate, even then it'll only effect 6 people. heals already applies to everyone.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

SoulScream wrote: »

I'm pretty tolerant but the constant impulse zerg is even starting to bother me.

Zergs don't just Impulse and even if Impulse was completely removed from the game zergs would keep zerging.

Lemme introduce you to some other great skills the zerg uses that either do more dmg than impulse or offer free synergy attacks: Energy Orb, Liquid Lightning, Fragmented Shield, Sap Essence, Blazing Shield.

I'll let you in on a secret...do you know what gets a zerg its most kills? Light Attacks

This. Light attack and Mage's Fury get me more kills than impulse ever has.

pitdemon_ESO wrote: »

The fans of PvE are going to be extremely angry at those few of us who prefer to engage in the act of Player Vs Player combat if we do anything to affect their dungeon clear times [edited]

Also, even if Impulse gets nerfed whats to stop people from just swapping to medium armor and using Steel Tornado, Sap Essence, etc? There needs to be a fundamental re-write of how AEs work (including the cap), the way tanks work (including collision), and the way damage shields work/stack.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Inappropriate Content and Language]

They might need tanks hmmm..

My group of 8-10 people has wiped more 30-40 man zerg balls than I can count. All you need to do is apply a little bit of meat, a fire ballista, a negate and a couple people with AOE and coordinate so it hits them all at the same time. I've finish a kill quest in a couple of seconds wiping groups like this.

Siege and negate don't have AOE caps so use them to your advantage. I've hit 27 people with a single meatbag before.

Too many people come to these forums to complain about things they can't figure out how to beat. If you can't beat something, ask someone else how to beat it before coming here to complain about it.

That said, personal AOE caps need to be increased at LEAST to 8, preferably 12.