A word of Caution on AOE Caps

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

I understand OP's point.
It is always good to be cautious about changes, but there comes a point where there is enough data to accurately predict results of a feature.

For instance, the stacking we see today was predicted in every way at the reveal of the target cap. The behavior changes went noticed over night.
At this point, there is no doubt that the caps are the cause of stacking.

We can also know, both through experience and calculations, how uncapped, spread out, fights behave.

Not all large forces know they should stack, and during their fights you can witness that aoes don't hit that many targets, even in inner keep situations.
Observation that can be explained by calculation using estimated player density with the radius of most aoes. Ranged ones should be hitting an average of 2 to 3.6 targets while pbaoes like impulse should hit 6 targets in average.
It stands to reason that this is why the caps have been implemented all along, yet no one noticed. They just didn't have much of an effect.

We can safely argue that target caps are useful only because they exist.
Without them, there wouldn't be a meta of stacking, so it would be rare to hit much above 6 targets so a cap wouldn't be necessary.
It is cyclical in nature.

It also has a lot of secundary effects, like how we perceive healing and buffing.
It is made stronger by stacking in the current meta, but it would be of equivalent strength in spread out situations.
Perhaps even stronger because instead of healing 6 targets each time, it would be the average 3 targets estimated earlier.
Most heals have a 27m radius for 3 targets. Positive pbaoes have radiuses starting at 10m and up. Grand healing and its morphs has 27m range and 8m radius. In all cases, it doesn't require to stack.

For reference, the largest ranged damage aoe is at 6m radius. Only caltrops may be a bit larger, but I couldn't find numbers.
Impulse is at 8m and bat swarm at 10m.
In short, beneficial aoes are easier to aim/get into position and can impact more targets in average.

As for keeps and resources, the current meta is to ignore the enemies and just stack on the flags while tanking the damage. Captures can even occur despite remaining opposition.
In my opinion, requiring a group to achieve victory before rewarding them with a successful capture is a step in the right direction.
Resources are openfield fights, so we know how those will behave.
For inner keeps and bridges, the only true choke points in the game, the attackers are usualy spread out until they charge. At which point they become just as vulnerable as the defenders were all along.
It is most likely that defending will be harder without target caps.

TL;DR and conclusion:
While the potential damage of aoe is unlimited without target caps, the change would actually nerf aoe by a good margin: going from 6 guaranteed targets to a realistic average of 3.
Even ultimate generation would be reduced, as it is dependant on targets hit.

The fear of getting one shotted will change much of the meta for the better.
Be it openfield fights, choke points situations or even how healing is used.
It will slow down the pacing a bit and fights will be, in most cases, longer.

There are, as of yet, not foreseeable negative impact to removing the caps.
Maybe there will be, but it is very unlikely.

One thing is for certain though, nothing that would emerge can be worst than stacking. And don't mistake this statement for an opinion.
Stacking is a dominant strategy, something so advantageous that it removes any notion of meaningful choice. You either do it, or you're doing it wrong.
These are the single most destructive flaws possible in game design.

All abilities without a target number in the tooltip need to be uncapped.

Rylana · September 2014

Except you forget the result of the AOE caps and what was substituted.

Ultimate stacking + necrotic and other group synergies. Most of these have no cap associated and will hit everyone in the AOE.

The usual tactic used now to bomb an inner keep, for example, is denial of location/positioning via bombing with so much ultimate spam that you literally will die regardless of how strong your healers are.

Case in point, have two novae, two standards, two batswarms, two veils and jump a flag hitting them all, throw in some barriers negates and incantations for defense, and it doesnt matter how many players are inside, you will wipe every single one without fail every single time, unless they respond in kind or move. If they respond in kind it becomes a numbers game, if they move, you just capped the flag they were defending.

At this point of the engagement, impulse and other capped aoes are more nuisance than threat, because the ultimates do nearly all of the damage required to secure the kill. Only players with 4000+ health supertank setups with magic shields will survive an onslaught like that, and they are mopup after their allies are all dead.

Now you propose to make them just as dangerous by removing the caps, thus increasing the sheer volume of firepower aforementioned attacker had by a factor of 2 (roughly)

The only defense becomes a stronger offense, and we are back to blob vs blob all over again.

The issue has always been the relative strength of AOE damage, not the caps. The caps are the only thing keeping AOE damage from being literally the ONLY damage type that can be used reliably.

Domander · September 2014

These huge (and fun) keep fights would end in about 10 seconds with no aoe caps.

That would Not be fun

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

@Rylana‌
It feels like you're making my point for me.
The strategy you illustrate only works in the current meta because people are stacking all on the flag.
And as you said yourself, the other group can respond in kind fairly easily as both groups are fairly visible, standing on top of each other.

Now let's forget about the current meta. if you didn't need to dump all your resource in one point to create a kill zone and force a spread out.
Would you stand on the flag, waiting for attackers to get in?
I don't think so.
It doesn't matter that something is uncapped if there aren't targets to hit.

Inner keeps are pretty well layed out, there are several corridors and position where defenders can be spread out and be out of view from a breach.
They can all focus on the point of entry yet cannot be focused at the same time.
They are also the immobile position, so they can use oil placement.
These are their advantages.

Attackers are spread out before entering, the determine the timing of the attack and can carpet bomb (as you described, or with siege) before entering and have the opportunity to prepare (barrier and other buffs).
These are their advantages.

No aoe caps will mean that either side will need to learn how to use their environment and the tools at their disposal, or they'll lose.
Numbers will be less of a factor.

"The caps are the only thing keeping AOE damage from being literally the ONLY damage type that can be used reliably. "

This is incorrect.
The caps are what make the aoes the only abilities you should be using.
I know it is a bit counter intuitive if you're not used to thinking in min-maxing terms, but I'll try to explain succinctly.

Aoe target caps mean that there are no drawbacks to stacking, which in turns means every group you'll face will eventually be a blob.
In that situation, it is always 6 guaranteed hits, even with the smaller aoes.
There are no situations where single target abilities are preferable.

Without caps, single target abilities are more sustainable or plain higher dps.
Compared to ground targeted aoes, they are also easier skills to use due to the auto aim on instant casts feature.

Target caps also grossly buffs beneficial aoes due to having to deal with only a fraction of the incomming damage. What you consider mandatory now will become situational without aoe caps.

It is capital you understand that things will change, and that in practice, you will rarely hit 6 targets, even with the larger aoes.

Also, take into account the added visibility.
If fights are spread out, and there is an actual line of skrimmage, you can see when an enemy is crossing it. It is also easier for leaders to call focus fires.
If the guy is a vampire, or a mage with a destruction staff, you can anticipate his actions and avoid his pbaoes while rangeing him down.

Rylana · September 2014

Youre envisioning a world where no one stealths, everyone stands across from each other on an open even plain without LOS trying to defend your stance.

I have yet to ever see since last november in beta, that scenario unfold in this game.

Removal of AOE caps simply makes the group with the most AOE the strongest group, and scales it with size. The bigger the group, the more area denial they can output. We will go from AOE blobs camping over breaches (like illustrated in a recent video) to AOE blobs literally never leaving the interior of a contested keep because nowhere inside the room is safe enough for anyone to enter, save a larger blob that has as much AOE (and even then it becomes a giant deathball on both sides til the last few remain standing, etc)

Here is a theoretical based on current in game meta/situation. The OP is from a guild called Alacrity, a guild ive seen utilize tremendous AOE damage in tight spaces and tight formations to wipe out much larger groups with what about 12-20 of them or so?

Now imagine that group without any AOE cap... you will literally double their power. That is the core of any zergball, a dedicated commed AOE bomb group. The zerg simply follows it everywhere. We get the same thing in TKO, I am sure No Mercy gets it, Hijinx, etc. The controlled methodical in a sea of chaos. And youre wanting to make that stronger?

Note that I am fully aware removal of aoe caps makes individuals and small groups stronger, but it also makes larger groups and full on zergs that much more powerful by scale. More = More.

The fantasy that it will break the zerging stacks up is speculation and a hope. Youre not going to get rid of the stackball, theres no counter to it viable enough to get people to stop, and a removal of AOE caps certainly wont do that. If anything youd just be making groups that do use it to extreme levels that much harder to actually take down (my own included).

I believe removal is the worst thing ZOS could do at this point. Lowering AOE damage in general should be the way forward.

Honfold · September 2014

Rylana wrote: »

Youre........I believe removal is the worst thing ZOS could do at this point. Lowering AOE damage in general should be the way forward.

This is what I have been thinking since the first post about removing AOE caps.

Keron · September 2014

Rylana wrote: »

I believe removal i]of AOE caps[/i is the worst thing ZOS could do at this point.

Also my thoughts exactly. Sadly, given the track record of changes so far, it is going to be exactly what they will be doing with 1.5.x

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

The stacks work because of the target cap.
Groups that stay on top of each other gain a passive dodge chances against aoes when aoes should be their logical counter. And it starts at cap+1 players.

Just 12 people means getting hit only 50% of the time.
24 people is half that, getting hit only 25% of the time.
This is an advantage that scales with numbers.

Larger groups will always have an advantage in fire power, with or without caps.
If you get in range of impulse spam, you get one shotted now, just as you will without caps.
But with a target cap, they also have nothing to lose. They take less damage, and with the random distribution of damage, they have a form of invulnerability until the character with the least hp in their group gets hit enough times.
Add to that smart healing, and you can't really cause them harm unless you can break their "effecitve hp regen".
They also do proportionally more damage to their enemies with each of their attacks. 6 players hit in a 18 members group is 1/3rd of the group hit when 6 against 24 is 1/4th.

Remove the caps, and they'll do proportionally less damage to a smaller group (less targets to hit) and will stand to lose a lot more hp(providing more targets to be hit)
Larger groups will almost always win, but they'll at least not be invulnerable.
They'll lose members to focused strikes and will suffer from attrition.

In the example you gave, with them staying in the keep, you forget that they can be carpet bombed. They are purposefully camping in a location where they provide an easy target for aoes and they will get wiped by the first wave that comes in. if they aren't wiped, they'll lose members that can't respawn there, and will eventually run out of defenders.
But currently, thanks to being stacked, they all survive and can take on the masses of unorganised players not through skill but through numeric defensive advantages.

In the chaos, everyone thinks of throwing an aoe to the stack of guys, but not many casual players know that this has absolutely no impact.
Without caps, a single individual in a mass of unorganised players can have an impact on a stacking group. Just encase would wreck their day if they provide such an easy target. And the accumulation of random aoes thrown their way would come to a sizeable chunk of group overall hp to heal.

I don't think you've put much though into this.
You show a lot of the misconceptions that were common several weeks ago.
I suggest you try to read up a bit on the issue, or try to think about it more.

Garion · September 2014

There are good arguments for and against the removal of AOE caps. I would be fine with it, given the strength of the group I play with. Nonetheless I can see why many wouldn't be. I'd say that a significant amount of those campaigning for the AOE cap would very quickly go back on their desire for its removal once they experienced it and so I can understand ZOS being reluctant to remove it altogether. [@ZOS - no AOE cap campaign on the PTS, please?]

To that end I think we need to look at it sensibly and realise that no, they aren't going to remove the AOE cap, but it certainly does need tweaks and changes to improve the state of the game. Here are some things I would like to see that I think might help improve balance and make zerg balling a little more counterable (because, let's face it, for the majority that play style is ruining the game).

Increase the current AOE cap for AOE abilities to 8 (or a predetermined number that, after testing, strikes a healthy balance between not being ridiculously OP but also allowing coordinated attacks to do more damage to groups that elect to blob.
Increase the current AOE cap for ultimate abilities to 10 (or 12) but marginally increase their cost by 25% (or 50%) to reflect this.
Cap ultimate generation at six characters hit. For the additional numbers hit, no ultimate will be generated.
Make immovable viable only if you are wearing 5 heavy armour pieces (the same should apply to annulment / harness magicka etc) and increase duration based on the number of pieces worn - 8 seconds for five pieces, 10 seconds for six pieces, 12 seconds for 7 pieces.
Introduce new siege weapons, or change the dynamics / mechanics of current siege weapons, for breaking up zerg balls. For example (and I am just throwing stuff out at the moment, feel free to offer improvements!) -
- A stone trebuchet should do minimal damage to keeps walls, but should knockback enemies in the effected area (spreading them out).
- Fire trebuchets should leave an uncapped burning AOE effect on the ground after landing for X seconds. If a zerg is bombarded with these, even high levels of organisation will be put under strain here.
Make the leaders of enemy groups identifiable. A priority in battle should be taking out a group's leader. While this might not mean the end of the zerg, it will certainly mean they lose a few precious seconds in organisation.

Feel free to add your own suggestions...

Moltier · September 2014

Domander wrote: »

These huge (and fun) keep fights would end in about 10 seconds with no aoe caps.

That would Not be fun

Only if one or both teams would be brain dead, and stack like now.

Keron · September 2014

Removing AoE caps is a bad idea because damage scaling (up to the "we one shot everything no matter what you do") is exponential for groups.

No matter what kind of meta arguments you give on "proportionally less damage" and whatnot, the only thing this will do is reduce the size of the blob. It will make us go from a 50+ player bombtrain to a 10-15 player bomb train (with the same damage output).

No cap = 15 players pressing impulse once will kill 1 or 100 players inside their radius. As everybody just has to press once, spreading out doesn't help - they will just pressing the button a second time as soon as they reached the next couple of targets.

Removal of AoE caps will just make defense against a blob impossible but will not change feasibility of going the blob way. Then, the game will be called "he who blobs first wins" and not "he who blobs largest wins". Same "UNFUN" (oh you are peeing me off with your swear word filters) game play.

The only "Maybe helpful" will be to remove target cap exclusively from ground targeted AoE that is not an ultimate. Have Lightning Splash & morphs, Spear Shards & morphs and Volley & morphs deal damage without target cap, reduce or at the very most retain current damage (so it's survivable) and give them the possibility to "block choke points" no matter the number of people going through there.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

@Garion‌

Increasing the cap doesn't solve the issue, it just increases the barrier to entry.
Stacking will always be the most viable strategy if you can easily afford capx1.5 group members. Even cap + 1 is enough in some cases.

Now, members of a group of 7 have a bit above 14% chances of avoiding aoe damage if they stack. 33% if in a group of 9.
If you increase the cap to 8, a group of 9 would still get 11% dodge chances.
And a group of 18 would have 55% dodge chances instead of 65%.
Not a big difference, and still a very valuable advantage to use.

Also, perhaps it got lost in my longer posts, but aoes in spread out fights, and even in inner keep fights, don't hit much more than 3 or 4 targets in average.
So if we weren't aware of the target cap, it would be irelevant.

And that's actually what happenned at launch. People didn't know there was a cap, so people didn't use it. Fights were spread out and no one noticed there was a target cap.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Keron wrote: »

Removing AoE caps is a bad idea because damage scaling (up to the "we one shot everything no matter what you do") is exponential for groups.

No matter what kind of meta arguments you give on "proportionally less damage" and whatnot, the only thing this will do is reduce the size of the blob. It will make us go from a 50+ player bombtrain to a 10-15 player bomb train (with the same damage output).

No cap = 15 players pressing impulse once will kill 1 or 100 players inside their radius. As everybody just has to press once, spreading out doesn't help - they will just pressing the button a second time as soon as they reached the next couple of targets.

Removal of AoE caps will just make defense against a blob impossible but will not change feasibility of going the blob way. Then, the game will be called "he who blobs first wins" and not "he who blobs largest wins". Same *** game play.

Impulse doesn't have range, just radius.
To use it, the stacking group would have to move.
The non stacking group would just have to easily focus fire the easiest target ever while evading in various direction.

While the impulse will hit targets only 2 by 2, most of its members will be hit.
There wouldn't even be competition here.

As you said, the focus fire one shot barrier of entry is at around 10 to 15 players.
As impulse will be suicide, to one shot people the groups will need actual coordination and the use of ranged aoes.
Ranged aoes have a maximum radius of 6m (lightning flood) but usually are bellow (volley 5m, volcanic rune 3m).
These are very limited sizes. If you were to use them against 40 players in a 20m radius, you would hit only 3.6 targets in average for the 6m radius abilities.

So no, a group cannot one shot another group, no matter the size, unless the target makes a very huge mistake. Like for instance, standing around an npc, or rushing in an inner keep without preparation.

It would actually require less effort of coordination and aiming to use single target abilities focus fire. It lowers the one shot requirement, makes usage of the auto aim and can be targeted by name rather than ambiguous locations.

Xsorus · September 2014

Keron wrote: »

Removing AoE caps is a bad idea because damage scaling (up to the "we one shot everything no matter what you do") is exponential for groups.

No matter what kind of meta arguments you give on "proportionally less damage" and whatnot, the only thing this will do is reduce the size of the blob. It will make us go from a 50+ player bombtrain to a 10-15 player bomb train (with the same damage output).

No cap = 15 players pressing impulse once will kill 1 or 100 players inside their radius. As everybody just has to press once, spreading out doesn't help - they will just pressing the button a second time as soon as they reached the next couple of targets.

Removal of AoE caps will just make defense against a blob impossible but will not change feasibility of going the blob way. Then, the game will be called "he who blobs first wins" and not "he who blobs largest wins". Same "UNFUN" (oh you are peeing me off with your swear word filters) game play.

The only "Maybe helpful" will be to remove target cap exclusively from ground targeted AoE that is not an ultimate. Have Lightning Splash & morphs, Spear Shards & morphs and Volley & morphs deal damage without target cap, reduce or at the very most retain current damage (so it's survivable) and give them the possibility to "block choke points" no matter the number of people going through there.

See there is a problem with that line of thinking

Unless you're specifically stacking past 6 people..you wouldn't notice the change to AOE caps.

15 Players will instantly kill 1 player today just as easily because there is no Cap keeping that 1 player from being hit by that impulse...However there is a magical cap saving 9 of the players from being hit by that 1 player with impulse.

If 100 players stack up and get impulsed to death by 15 players, I have zero problem with that....Because 100 players shouldn't of been stacking in the first place...

Moltier · September 2014

Rylana wrote: »

Removal of AOE caps simply makes the group with the most AOE the strongest group, and scales it with size. The bigger the group, the more area denial they can output. We will go from AOE blobs camping over breaches (like illustrated in a recent video) to AOE blobs literally never leaving the interior of a contested keep because nowhere inside the room is safe enough for anyone to enter, save a larger blob that has as much AOE (and even then it becomes a giant deathball on both sides til the last few remain standing, etc)

Here is a theoretical based on current in game meta/situation. The OP is from a guild called Alacrity, a guild ive seen utilize tremendous AOE damage in tight spaces and tight formations to wipe out much larger groups with what about 12-20 of them or so?

Now imagine that group without any AOE cap... you will literally double their power. That is the core of any zergball, a dedicated commed AOE bomb group. The zerg simply follows it everywhere. We get the same thing in TKO, I am sure No Mercy gets it, Hijinx, etc. The controlled methodical in a sea of chaos. And youre wanting to make that stronger?

Note that I am fully aware removal of aoe caps makes individuals and small groups stronger, but it also makes larger groups and full on zergs that much more powerful by scale. More = More.

The fantasy that it will break the zerging stacks up is speculation and a hope. Youre not going to get rid of the stackball, theres no counter to it viable enough to get people to stop, and a removal of AOE caps certainly wont do that. If anything youd just be making groups that do use it to extreme levels that much harder to actually take down (my own included).

I believe removal is the worst thing ZOS could do at this point. Lowering AOE damage in general should be the way forward.

You keep saying blobs would become stronger, but how?
You mean blob vs blob? In that case yes, but who cares if they die in less then a second?

In your mentioned theoretical situation, how would that group hit more then 3-4 enemys constantly? Actually, you said it would double their power. So at least 12 target must be hit. They could heal 12 target yes, but damage?
If another blob, good, both team dead. If its a well timed surprise attack, nicely done! Other then that, nope.

You say, AoE cap removal wouldnt stop zerg balls. Why not?
Currently if 10 AoE lands on 30 player, it will hit for what? 700/player average?
You will need 40 such an AoE to have a small chance to kill somebody, if the group isnt healing at all. It will take forever to do that.
Remove the AoE caps, and that 10 AoEs will hit for 3500/player.
Can it be outhealed? Yes. Can the group die in 2 seconds? Yes.

Since they would take a hell lot more damage, please enlighten us, what would make them much harder to take down?

Maybe im really missing a point. Hey, it can happen, and it does happen! But currently i see well thought out post why the removal is good, and nothing from the cap defenders.
More = More isnt a good reply. :P More AoE damage is also more against those zergballs.

Keron · September 2014

Stop with the semantics. For all intents and purposes "damage range" and "radius" is synonymous.

You again just take into consideration two equally skilled groups of players. Skill is not and will never be equal. Focus fire is no mean feat in this game, even for highly skilled coordinated player groups.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

While the impulse will hit targets only 2 by 2, most of its members will be hit.
There wouldn't even be competition here.

Correct. There wouldn't be any competition for the blob. If "most of its members are hit" you either have an overwhelming superiority in numbers (you would have won anyways, no matter the target caps) or you would spread the damage so thin that it gets lost due to healing within the blob.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

As impulse will be suicide, to one shot people the groups will need actual coordination and the use of ranged aoes.

Making an argument from a false assumption sadly makes the argument fail. Why should impulse be more or less suicide than anything else?

As mentioned before, focus fire with the pointing targeting (even including the tab targeting mechanism) in TESO is by far not as easy as you make it sound. Not using impulse and spreading out still makes you an easy target for single target damage (maybe even easier as it is much simpler to coordinate targeting) and it doesn't make a lick of a difference whether you take out one of a blob or one of a spread group.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Ranged aoes have a maximum radius of 6m (lightning flood) but usually are bellow (volley 5m, volcanic rune 3m).
These are very limited sizes. If you were to use them against 40 players in a 20m radius, you would hit only 3.6 targets in average for the 6m radius abilities.

Bla bla statistics. In the open field, a zerg train is easy to evade and not that much of a problem anyways. Whether you have target caps or not, fighting the blob in open terrain is relatively speaking easy.

The issue with zergs is that they are unbeatable if encountered in restricted terrain. In a restricted terrain like the breach in a keep wall, the wall parapet, inside of keeps around flags, etc. In this same restricted terrain, your statistics of "on average 3.6 players" goes down the drain completely.

So yes, a group can one shot. Even if all enemies are perfect players and are completely immune to any kind of CC and have perfect latency, there are still mechanisms that will prevent the perfect reaction to happen at the perfect time.

Sorry to say it this bluntly, but the picture you draw has absolutely nothing in common with the reality.

EDIT to include other answers:

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

See there is a problem with that line of thinking

Unless you're specifically stacking past 6 people..you wouldn't notice the change to AOE caps.

15 Players will instantly kill 1 player today just as easily because there is no Cap keeping that 1 player from being hit by that impulse...However there is a magical cap saving 9 of the players from being hit by that 1 player with impulse.

If 100 players stack up and get impulsed to death by 15 players, I have zero problem with that....Because 100 players shouldn't of been stacking in the first place...

Well, yes, that is what I said. Removing the target cap will just reduce the number of zerglings but change nothing for the tactics itself.

And therefore it will not solve the problem, only worsen it, because instead of two to three 50-player-trains that can be at two or three locations at the same time at most, you will have ten 15-player trains and each is as powerful as a 50-player-train is now.

Moltier wrote: »

Maybe im really missing a point. Hey, it can happen, and it does happen! But currently i see well thought out post why the removal is good, and nothing from the cap defenders.
More = More isnt a good reply. :P More AoE damage is also more against those zergballs.

The main reason why removal of the cap is a bad idea is that this will not reduce the offensive potential of the zerg - opposite is true, it will increase it's offensive power. That means that the only consequence is that you will not be able to defend against a zerg because no matter how many people you bring in to fight it - they will kill you nonetheless.

Stop thinking about open field fights. Open field is neither the issue with zergs nor a scenario that needs evaluation: all main PvP objectives are in restricted locations.

Rylana · September 2014

The whole argument is the classic negative intuitive.

"give less incentive to use something and it will be used less"

The problem is that there is no downside to using it, now or even in the event that the caps become removed.

Status quo remains the same, regardless, because AOE damage is as high as it is. Single target cannot compete, as the slight uptick is offset by the fact that aoe still does nearly as much damage to multiple targets.

People joke all the time about how impulse is a terrible 1v1 weapon, until you mention it cant be blocked or mitigated in ANY WAY and that destro pen + light armor pen completely negates all existing spell resistance up to and including hard cap, then it is a little different of a story, you CAN block everything single target and a good deal of the actual hard hitting spammable single targets are physical damage, mitigated by armor, for which there is no penetrate stat existing that can negate all of it.

So at the end of the day all of this hullabaloo about tiny groups taking on massive groups because the aoe caps are to blame is simply horsecrap. Nothing changes except for now even a medium to large sized group would die just the same as a tiny one.

No one is going to give up safety in numbers. You would need an actual active hard counter to the benefit of balling up to dissuade people from balling up. The "fear" or lack thereof of AOE from a small group is in no way a dissuasion, id dare anyone to try that tactic vs someone on the caliber of previously mentioned guilds, it will not work, zero percent chance, if it isnt already.

I also like the notion that because I dont agree with you that it makes me uneducated or stupid on the subject. I will advise you that I run in two distinct PvP groups. One is a zergbuster, the other is one of the "zerg groups using lots of AOE blahblah" that this is intended to destroy. Therefore, I know quite acutely the issues faced by BOTH SIDES OF THE SUBJECT thank you very much.

In neither case would those two groups be weakened by this. My smaller group and my larger group both benefit from the existing cap. Removing it actually makes TKOs group ideaology stronger, and it would make Vice's ideaology lethal except against groups like TKO that would just overwhelm with sheer numbers anyway.

You want an idea that will actually force zergs to "spread out" so your group can 8v1 people on the fringe easier? Remove immovable from the game entirely so that CC actually works again. Or how about making heals not be confined to small radius casts or single target random casts.

demonlkojipub19_ESO · September 2014

I'm sure certain nerfs to AOE have already been brought up that need to go along with removal of AoE caps. We've seen what happens when its "just done" with streak.

Mine are:

1). cap on how many targets hit will give ultimate, not how many targets are hit.

2). Change to aoe abilities where their damage listed is split between the number of targets hit. If impulse can hit 1 target for 500, it will hit 6 targets a lower percent of of that, continually dropping per target added until it reaches a low limit.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

@Keron‌

Range and radius is different.
For instance, grand healing has a 8m radius and a range of 28m.
Impulse as a radius of 8m but no range, lightning flood as a range of 28m and a radius of 6m.
Also, lightning flood does more damage per mana, and volcanic rune does more dps.

Impulse, compared to other abilities, is weak and only made strong by its ease of use in a stacking group. Follow the crown, and click once in a while and you'll hit stuff.

I'm considering player skill, but are you?
What is easier, waiting for an opportunity to strike in the ebb and flow of battle, or just see a group of stacking players that never split up and go in a fairly predictable direction?
Stacking and using impulse equates to obtaining the ability to one shot players within 8m of you (2 by 2) in exchange for being one shottable by any group at 28m range. (most being hit)
Even without focus firing, as I said before, any random shmuck is able to recognise "I should aoe that group". It won't be a one shot, but it won't be healable damage. I won't bother you with statistics, but heals and barriers have less sustainability and much less hp per second than offensive aoes.

You say it yourself, it is easy to avoid a group of stacking players in open field.
By spreading out, you may get more vulnerable to single target damage, but if you stack, you open yourself to X times that damage and potential OS wipes.

It is suicide, the stacking group will get killed by lesser numbers of lesser skill.

In constricted environment, a larger group is at a disadvantage.
The number I provided changes, but the reasoning stands: player density is what determines the potency of aoes.
The barrier of entry for one shotting is still the same, around 10 players, but a larger group risks more players at the same time.
If a zerg takes up position in constricted areas on its own accord, then they chose to stack and are going to have a bad time.

In an inner keep siege situation, as the attackers, you don't need to rush in, just drain the defenders over time.
You have more room to breath out of the building and, in your scenario, you are less than them. So you have a much lower player density which means that they can't really damage you with aoes while you can.

If they try a sortie, which they should, you either have eyes on the breach(OS), or they come from a different side, a wall or in the courtyard.
Either ways, it turns the fight in a less constricted area where they still have higher density.

This is a huge step up compared to now, where they have virtual invulnerability.

And finally, there can be no full wipes unless one group stands entirely in a 6m radius. Which doesn't happen normaly, not even in a keep.
Even the inner postern wall breach is wider than that and inside the building, the rooms are larger and you have enough corridors to split up the group to avoid damage.
A wall isn't very wide, but it is long enough to spread out too.

Keron · September 2014

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

2). Change to aoe abilities where their damage listed is split between the number of targets hit. If impulse can hit 1 target for 500, it will hit 6 targets a lower percent of of that, continually dropping per target added until it reaches a low limit.

This is synonymous to @Rylana's idea to reduce AoE effectiveness in general and it would still be a target cap, even though a soft one. You come to a break even point where the amount of targets makes the AoE ineffective due to low individual damage.

There could be the problem at some point that you just have to stack more people to have it still be effective but if the decline is steep enough (maybe linear: 1 target = 100%, two targets = 50% each, three targets = 33% each, etc.), there is a break even point that against a stack of 50 people with healing staying as is, AE doesn't make any sense because even with full server pop (200 players) you couldn't produce enough DPS to cancel out the HPS.

In the end it is the same as what we have now, only with different numbers.

No the better solution would be to change effectiveness of healing and stacking of shields. This will do much more in regards to zerg survivability than increasing the AoE damage. Have all Healing spells have a 3 target cap, all shields mutually exclusive and reduce overall damage output (AE as well as Single Target) so that TTK remains the same.

Then make it so that a player can only cast heals if he has no ultimate active. Make them do the hard choice: Can I cast barrier and be locked out of healing for 30 seconds? Can the others take up the drop? Will we survive if I cast that bat swarm now?

Reducing the healing capacity to a point where you need to have more healers and more shields available than players free for attacks while retaining the limitation of targets you can damage reduces the efficiency of a zerg to a point where it is more economic to go spread out and single target.

You can use it still in special situations: Flag defense being one example. You can sit there and be unkillable but also you can't kill the attackers. This way you can buy reinforcements time and you can do ONLY this. You can't roflstomp the attackers because that would make you vulnerable.

EDIT to answer Frosth:

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Range and radius is different.
For instance, grand healing has a 8m radius and a range of 28m.
Impulse as a radius of 8m but no range, lightning flood as a range of 28m and a radius of 6m.

I just realized that I never once mentioned "range" in the post you previously quoted, so your comment was superfluous in the first place anyways.

Nonetheless, I am well aware of the differences between "range", "damage range" and "radius" and "radius of effect", so let's stop the discussion on wording right now.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, lightning flood does more damage per mana, and volcanic rune does more dps.
[...]A wall isn't very wide, but it is long enough to spread out too.
Quote shortened for brevity

All of this is true no matter whether you have AoE caps or not. So it isn't any kind of relevant to the discussion whether AoE cap removal is good or bad. Only exception is this:

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

By spreading out, you may get more vulnerable to single target damage, but if you stack, you open yourself to X times that damage and potential OS wipes.

It is suicide, the stacking group will get killed by lesser numbers of lesser skill.

And that is a moot point. If the large group reacts too slow to counter the small group, they would have died even with AoE caps or at least be reduced in numbers so that they are easier to deal with.

Again, what I said was that removal of the target cap will reduce the size of the zerg (from 50+ to 15+), without changing anything on the end result: It's still bombing only with smaller groups, just because it doesn't help your survivability to stack beyond the minimum for one-shot-kills.

All other arguments you put up are in place anyways, irrespective of target caps. Shuffle some numbers and you can say exactly the same about the current state of play.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

@Rylana‌
This isn't about negative incentive but about punishment.
There are currently no punishment for stacking.
Yes, on top of that, you get rewarded for it in the form of easier beneficial aoes.
But the reason that makes stacking so viable is the lack of damage.

Getting your entire group hit rather than only a tiny subset of it is a punishment.
I don't think you can argue against that.
Also, the more you stack, the more you are recognisable as an aoe worthy target, even by bellow average players. You will get organically focused.

I'm sorry if I offended you, it wasn't my aim, but from your responses it doesn't seem that you properly understand the subject of the discussion.
This isn't about larger numbers, zerging, but about the act of purposefully sharing the same physical space with allied players.(balls are touching)
This has very little to do with small zerg busting squads versus zerg discussions.
The target cap is an issue even when equal sized forces, 12v12 or 60v60.

It also doesn't matter if it is still possible to take down such groups, the issue is that there are no other choice but to stack.
This is called a "dominant strategy" in decision theory, and it is a design flaw.

Most organised groups will still win against non organised groups.
The goal is actually to ensure that.
As of now, the skill ceiling of organisation is to follow the crown, and do the occasional ranged/ultimate focus fire.
Remove the cap, and other tactics will emerge, in theory a more varied ecosystem. With more viable choices and the need to counter them all in some way, it increases the skill ceiling and groups of various caliber, now appearing "equal" will have a more linear progression curve.
This progression curve is crucial to the long term appeal of the game, as players will have something to work towards and improve themselves.

"We didn't know about this tactic and couldn't counter it" is more interesting than the sad realization that "we did everything right, they were just more"

As a side note, I agree with you, the mana to dps ratio could be adjusted between aoes and single target abilities, but that's an entirely different discussion.
Reducing the effective use of aoes does reduce the gap, but it is a lucky side effect of removing target caps, not its main purpose.

Keron · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm sorry if I offended you, it wasn't my aim, but from your responses it doesn't seem that you properly understand the subject of the discussion.

Even though this is not targeted at me: Frosth, please don't do this. It is derogatory and not really true. Just because @Rylana highlights a different aspect than the point you intend to make doesn't mean that (s)he doesn't understand.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

As a side note, I agree with you, the mana to dps ratio could be adjusted between aoes and single target abilities, but that's an entirely different discussion.
Reducing the effective use of aoes does reduce the gap, but it is a lucky side effect of removing target caps, not its main purpose.

And this is plain contradictory. We were talking about increasing the mana-to-DPS-ratio for AoE to make Single Target damage more viable. Removing AoE caps does exactly the opposite for large groups of targets, thus further reducing single target viability in combatting large groups.

Mumyo · September 2014

If they are coordinated or not... "Zerg balls" are destroying the game to all the other players in terms of playstyle and fps or huge lags. The servers cant carry that playstyle. Haderus was really fun to me as long as there were no such groups. Now i run from 1 lagkeep to another in hope to find small scale pvp which is also laggy because the complete server is not making it.

-This is not an offense but i hope u undertand that u are screwing the pvp to lots of other players and u make it unenjoyable!
I hope u can understand that.

-There should a server where its simply accepted that no bombgroups enter. But who follows rulez in this mess?

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Keron wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Range and radius is different.
For instance, grand healing has a 8m radius and a range of 28m.
Impulse as a radius of 8m but no range, lightning flood as a range of 28m and a radius of 6m.

I just realized that I never once mentioned "range" in the post you previously quoted, so your comment was superfluous in the first place anyways.

Nonetheless, I am well aware of the differences between "range", "damage range" and "radius" and "radius of effect", so let's stop the discussion on wording right now.

It's not about wording, you brought it into this realm for no valid reason.

I was talking about range to point out that impulse is inferior due to not having range and that it isn't reliable to use it unless you are clipping into each other, following a crown.

Keron wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, lightning flood does more damage per mana, and volcanic rune does more dps.
[...]A wall isn't very wide, but it is long enough to spread out too.
Quote shortened for brevity

All of this is true no matter whether you have AoE caps or not. So it isn't any kind of relevant to the discussion whether AoE cap removal is good or bad.

It is relevant to make the point that players have the ability to spread out beyond the size of aoes in most in game situation.
This in turns supports the fact that the stacking we witness now is "artificial".
No matter the location, the groups remain as close as they can to their crown.

Without the target cap, players would spread to reduce incoming damage because they have the ability to do so.
Larger groups would have the same space to spread, but more numbers, thus increasing player density and, by extention, incoming damage.

The size argument was that even in the case of a large group, the size of the location is still enough that aoes don't hit a very high amount of targets.

Keron wrote: »

Only exception is this:

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

By spreading out, you may get more vulnerable to single target damage, but if you stack, you open yourself to X times that damage and potential OS wipes.

It is suicide, the stacking group will get killed by lesser numbers of lesser skill.

And that is a moot point. If the large group reacts to slow to counter the small group, they would have died even with AoE caps or at least be reduced in numbers so that they are easier to deal with.

It isn't moot.
Without caps, you have a situation where you have the ability to one shot a stacking group with 10 persons, no matter the situation.
With caps, those same 10 persons would have to hit the other group by surprise and several times in a row before killing even one person.
With perfect random distribution, the amount of hits necessary is of:
stacked_group_size / target_cap.

This is enough time for any groups to react and start healing. Heck, most group never stop spaming heals.
Also, both groups are more often than not aware of each other existences, making the entire point about "surprising" a rare occurence and removes the notion of "reaction time".

Keron wrote: »

Again, what I said was that removal of the target cap will reduce the size of the zerg (from 50+ to 15+), without changing anything on the end result: It's still bombing only with smaller groups, just because it doesn't help your survivability to stack beyond the minimum for one-shot-kills.

All other arguments you put up are in place anyways, irrespective of target caps. Shuffle some numbers and you can say exactly the same about the current state of play.

Let me get this straight:
You sincerely think that stacking and using impulse would remain a viable tactic if target caps get removed and that all it would cause is to lower the amount of people used in the tactic to the strict minimum to one shot people.

I'm sort of baffled by that.
You don't think that being a very visible and shinny group will attract fire?
You don't think that hitting only a few targets at a time while most of your group getd hit will create a damage disadvantage in your defavor?
You don't think that it would be preferable for such a bomb group to use any other abilities that are superior to impulse damage wise and in addition have range?

I personally think that bomb group will always exist, and will adapt to the new world perfectly. However what will change is their tactics.
First, they won't stack, second, they won't use impulse but ranged tools, and finaly, they'll have to organise focus fire, increasing the skill ceiling for the entire maneuver. You'll get a gradual effectiveness as the players improve.

Keron · September 2014

I have to comment on some other things, even if I initially didn't want to go back to the "incentive vs. deterrence"-discussion that we had in the other thread.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

This isn't about negative incentive but about punishment.
There are currently no punishment for stacking.
Yes, on top of that, you get rewarded for it in the form of easier beneficial aoes.
But the reason that makes stacking so viable is the lack of damage.

Getting your entire group hit rather than only a tiny subset of it is a punishment.
I don't think you can argue against that.

Didn't we establish that deterrence is the wrong way to go at problems in the other thread? I'm kind of repeating myself, the way to go is not a punishment for blobbing, it is removal of the incentives to do so.

The main incentive to blobbing isn't because it gives you more damage output. The main incentive is - and I think all of us can agree on that - that blobbing makes you invulnerable.

Removal of AoE caps may in certain circumstances punish you for blobbing but this punishment is alleviated by a much increased efficiency damage wise. Hence my statement that the removal of the cap will only reduce the number of participants (more players = more difficult to coordinate) as the numbers don't give you the added damage mitigation.

Zerg still gives you the best survivability because healing is still encouraging blobbing. As opposed to spreading out, you can still prevent single target damage to stop your strike force. Enemy still needs AoE to stop your zerg, just not the same number of players.

It does nothing to prevent you from annihilating enemies before they can stop your zerg.

The only way to even out the survivability between zerging and spreading is to go for the root cause. Stop shield stacking, reduce targets of healing spells, balance TTK and make AoE deal significantly less damage to an individual than a single target attack.

If you are able to pick off participants of a zerg with the same efficiency as killing a solitary target while using single target damage instead of AoE, the zergballing loses its main incentive. In that case, both strategies, zerging and spreading, have their place and both can be countered.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Let me get this straight:
You sincerely think that stacking and using impulse would remain a viable tactic if target caps get removed and that all it would cause is to lower the amount of people used in the tactic to the strict minimum to one shot people.

I'm sort of baffled by that.
You don't think that being a very visible and shinny group will attract fire?
You don't think that hitting only a few targets at a time while most of your group getd hit will create a damage disadvantage in your defavor?
You don't think that it would be preferable for such a bomb group to use any other abilities that are superior to impulse damage wise and in addition have range?

Exactly (except for your fixation on impulse). For the reasons above: Yes, the zerg would be less effective in defending against AoE but it would still be as effective as before in defending against single target damage. As opposed to two advantages over spreading you only have one remaining but you still have one more than with spreading!

Zerging is not about efficiency of impulse. Impulse is just the only viable attack tool in your arsenal as a zerg and thus gets used. Impulse or no Impulse is not the question.

Shaun98ca2 · September 2014

A few things to mention in the removal of caps.....

This game was built for stacking in a sense.

Healing and buffing requires stacking.

There are guaranteed choke points.

Im also pretty certain capturing keeps and resources your a required to be on the flag for credit of having been there.

These things in the game all promote stacking.

Obviously we were never meant to "zergball" but at the same time the game seems to simply promote stacking.

100v100v100 battle again AOE uncapped seems to reign supreme as at some points people are going to be fighting near each other.

For large scale battles that we are MEANT to be having, uncapped AOEs seems detrimental to that to me.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Keron wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm sorry if I offended you, it wasn't my aim, but from your responses it doesn't seem that you properly understand the subject of the discussion.

Even though this is not targeted at me: Frosth, please don't do this. It is derogatory and not really true. Just because @Rylana highlights a different aspect than the point you intend to make doesn't mean that (s)he doesn't understand.

It's not derogatory.In this case, as far as I can see, the person mistook the discussion with another one. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it is a usual missunderstanding when people use zerg balls and blobs as terminology for the tactic, you always get people thinking that the discussion is about zerg vs smaller numbers balance when it isn't about that. (altough it does impact it)

That's why I switched to always use the terms "stacking" because it is much more representative.

Keron wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

As a side note, I agree with you, the mana to dps ratio could be adjusted between aoes and single target abilities, but that's an entirely different discussion.
Reducing the effective use of aoes does reduce the gap, but it is a lucky side effect of removing target caps, not its main purpose.

And this is plain contradictory. We were talking about increasing the mana-to-DPS-ratio for AoE to make Single Target damage more viable. Removing AoE caps does exactly the opposite for large groups of targets, thus further reducing single target viability in combatting large groups.

True, for large group of targets. But not for the average use.
Without aoe caps, in most cases including sieges, your aoe abilities would hit less than the guaranteed 6 targets they would in the current meta.
In openfield, it is more like 2-3 targets hits.
This is effectively reducing the gap between single target and aoe abilities.

It is healthy to have a purpose for each ability, so the cost to damage ratio needs to be adjusted a bit. In my opinion, a good ratio would be that 4 and above targets hit favor aoes.

Xsorus · September 2014

It baffles me that people think stacking groups will be stronger because they can hit more people and they'll not have a problem with no aoe caps. It's like people seriously think you'll be able to stand in one spot and survive by healing. The only reason these groups are able to survive right now is the damage mitigation you get from stacking, the healing in this game isn't remotely powerful enough to stand up to the aoe damage even a small group would be able to put out

demonlkojipub19_ESO · September 2014

Keron wrote: »

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

2). Change to aoe abilities where their damage listed is split between the number of targets hit. If impulse can hit 1 target for 500, it will hit 6 targets a lower percent of of that, continually dropping per target added until it reaches a low limit.

This is synonymous to @Rylana's idea to reduce AoE effectiveness in general and it would still be a target cap, even though a soft one. You come to a break even point where the amount of targets makes the AoE ineffective due to low individual damage.

There could be the problem at some point that you just have to stack more people to have it still be effective but if the decline is steep enough (maybe linear: 1 target = 100%, two targets = 50% each, three targets = 33% each, etc.), there is a break even point that against a stack of 50 people with healing staying as is, AE doesn't make any sense because even with full server pop (200 players) you couldn't produce enough DPS to cancel out the HPS.

In the end it is the same as what we have now, only with different numbers.

No the better solution would be to change effectiveness of healing and stacking of shields. This will do much more in regards to zerg survivability than increasing the AoE damage. Have all Healing spells have a 3 target cap, all shields mutually exclusive and reduce overall damage output (AE as well as Single Target) so that TTK remains the same.

Then make it so that a player can only cast heals if he has no ultimate active. Make them do the hard choice: Can I cast barrier and be locked out of healing for 30 seconds? Can the others take up the drop? Will we survive if I cast that bat swarm now?

Reducing the healing capacity to a point where you need to have more healers and more shields available than players free for attacks while retaining the limitation of targets you can damage reduces the efficiency of a zerg to a point where it is more economic to go spread out and single target.

You can use it still in special situations: Flag defense being one example. You can sit there and be unkillable but also you can't kill the attackers. This way you can buy reinforcements time and you can do ONLY this. You can't roflstomp the attackers because that would make you vulnerable.

EDIT to answer Frosth:

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Range and radius is different.
For instance, grand healing has a 8m radius and a range of 28m.
Impulse as a radius of 8m but no range, lightning flood as a range of 28m and a radius of 6m.

I just realized that I never once mentioned "range" in the post you previously quoted, so your comment was superfluous in the first place anyways.

Nonetheless, I am well aware of the differences between "range", "damage range" and "radius" and "radius of effect", so let's stop the discussion on wording right now.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, lightning flood does more damage per mana, and volcanic rune does more dps.
[...]A wall isn't very wide, but it is long enough to spread out too.
Quote shortened for brevity

All of this is true no matter whether you have AoE caps or not. So it isn't any kind of relevant to the discussion whether AoE cap removal is good or bad. Only exception is this:

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

By spreading out, you may get more vulnerable to single target damage, but if you stack, you open yourself to X times that damage and potential OS wipes.

It is suicide, the stacking group will get killed by lesser numbers of lesser skill.

And that is a moot point. If the large group reacts too slow to counter the small group, they would have died even with AoE caps or at least be reduced in numbers so that they are easier to deal with.

Again, what I said was that removal of the target cap will reduce the size of the zerg (from 50+ to 15+), without changing anything on the end result: It's still bombing only with smaller groups, just because it doesn't help your survivability to stack beyond the minimum for one-shot-kills.

All other arguments you put up are in place anyways, irrespective of target caps. Shuffle some numbers and you can say exactly the same about the current state of play.

I don't see lowering the effectiveness of heals preventing zerging. They aren't zerging you with heals, its the damage. You put a cap on healing spells then theres no way you can heal through the zerg. The zerg will be fine, the others will not. It's just heading in a new but still wrong direction.

Simply uncapping the most used aoe and doing nothing else to it will be catastrophous, then making it so you couldn't even heal through that damage would be even more catastrophous, to everyone, even the 6 person group. 40 people using impulse is still going to be greater than 3 people using impulse. even 10 simultaneous casts of it will kill you, let alone however many actually go off. You will still need a large group to fight off the large group.

If simply reducing the damage by number of targets hit isn't the right way, then the base damage needs severe nerf period, or else some skills need to keep their target caps, or even get the cap of 3 like you say healings springs should get.

Inhale is another instance of why you cant simply uncap it without doing anything else, and we already see an example of simply uncapping with streak.

Keron · September 2014

Just to drop that into the discussion for others who didn't follow in detail: There are two defining "ratios" in evaluating AoE against Single Target and both of them have to be taken into consideration.

The first ratio is the "resource vs. total damage" ratio. This ratio is constant for Single Target damage, the same damage will always have the same cost. For AoE it is dependent on the number of targets hit. The same damage to one target equals high ratio (more resources need to be spent for one point of damage) and the ratio gets lower as you hit more targets.

The point above is: If you hit four or more targets with your AoE, the ratio of "resource cost" divided by "total damage done" should give you a lower resource cost per point of damage than a single target attack.

The second ratio is the "resource vs. single target damage" ratio. This ratio is constant for AoE as well as Single Target damage. Here, the ratio needs to be significantly better for Single Target. Currently you have a ratio of roughly 3.5 Magicka for 1 damage to an individual with Impulse and 1.6 Magicka for 1 damage to an individual with Force Shock, using base damage values.

That means you have to spend roughly twice as much Magicka to kill a single solitary opponent with Impulse as opposed to using Force Shock. Considering that the Magicka pool (including regen, pots, spell cost reduction, damage increase and all other measures available to increase your resource pools) of an end game toon is enough to kill a single opponent 10 times over even with Impulse, this relation is seriously skewed.

It should be quadrupled at the very least.