Would This One Tweak Fix Cyrozergs?

Snit · May 2015

If you have played in an organized raid-group for PvP, you have probably noticed that two abilities are critical to their dominance:

Purge. Purge spam eliminates a lot of problems, especially siege damage
Retreating Maneuver. This makes the raid mobile and immune to all snares

If you think through tweaks to either of these, most proposed changes simply result in more people loading the skill (e.g., "make it cost more," "limit it to X targets," or "give it a cooldown."). A change that simply makes everyone load the same skill is not a good change.

Here's what might work: Remove all the snare-based effects from Maneuver, and treat heals as attacks that end the buff. Change it so that morph costs less, or also provides Minor Expedition for 6 seconds, etc, but remove the snare clear and immunity effects.

What happens then? Zergs become slow. Many players have speed boosts, but not every spec can manage them, particularly if they must be recast constantly. Zergs will either be limited to the pace of their slowest members, or they'll end up spread out. A slow zerg kills only the inattentive. A dispersed zerg can be picked apart. Think wolves surrounding a bear.

The coordinated group of 12 or 24 would still achieve far more than smaller groups or solos. In PvP, nothing ultimately beats organized, optimized guild groups on Teamspeak. However, they would no longer be lightning-fast killing machines, vulnerable only to similar groups.

I don't know whether this is a desirable result. 'Zerg' connotes unskilled play, and organized raids represent very skilled play. It's just not the same skillset as dueling. If ZOS does decide, however, to break up large groups -- and I think the changes to siege and the addition of Detonation indicate they might -- this might be the best way to do it without breaking anything else.

Just a thought. What have I got wrong?

AhPook_Is_Here · May 2015

Well it is going to make defending outposts and keeps much easier than it is now. So much easier that even bad farm groups will never leave fortifications. I'm sure you can figure out why.

Huntler · May 2015

No.

Edit1: No.

Edit2: Smaller groups need rapid... if you can't see why I can't help explain it to you other than... CC spam. Only way smaller forces ever can deal with larger forces is not getting bogged down by the snare/root spam that is so prevalent. Good players take advantage of what rapid is, knowing when to break it with an attack and when not to.

You people keep making these posts without thinking about the consequences. This would make the zerg stronger. This would just dumb the game down further. You take away the choice of to attack or not to. You take away a counter to root spam. Ugh...

No.

Valnas · May 2015

they could just fix magicka builds so aoe's and damage in general could be properly balanced. But instead we'll balance on top of this house of cards.

TheBull · May 2015

Purge has been OP for a long time. It's the biggest enabler imo.

frozywozy · May 2015

I disagree about this solution because it would definitely favor larger groups. The only solution is to favor long range combat such as sieging which favor smaller groups during keep / outpost / temple defenses. Any fix applied to melee range combat situations will always favor larger groups.

Huntler · May 2015

TheBull wrote: »

Purge has been OP for a long time. It's the biggest enabler imo.

pppontus · May 2015

Long range AOE CC? Range skills that actually really punish stacking groups of 10+? Think The Mage in AA, chain lightning?

I don't even know. Something needs to happen, fast.

EskimoBrother · May 2015

They need to just change the way AOE caps work. You should do bonus damage if so many targets are stacked together instead of doing less damage.

Juraigr · May 2015

Snit wrote: »

If you have played in an organized raid-group for PvP, you have probably noticed that two abilities are critical to their dominance:
Purge. Purge spam eliminates a lot of problems, especially siege damage

Retreating Maneuver. This makes the raid mobile and immune to all snares

If you think through tweaks to either of these, most proposed changes simply result in more people loading the skill (e.g., "make it cost more," "limit it to X targets," or "give it a cooldown."). A change that simply makes everyone load the same skill is not a good change.

Here's what might work: Remove all the snare-based effects from Maneuver, and treat heals as attacks that end the buff. Change it so that morph costs less, or also provides Minor Expedition for 6 seconds, etc, but remove the snare clear and immunity effects.

What happens then? Zergs become slow. Many players have speed boosts, but not every spec can manage them, particularly if they must be recast constantly. Zergs will either be limited to the pace of their slowest members, or they'll end up spread out. A slow zerg kills only the inattentive. A dispersed zerg can be picked apart. Think wolves surrounding a bear.

The coordinated group of 12 or 24 would still achieve far more than smaller groups or solos. In PvP, nothing ultimately beats organized, optimized guild groups on Teamspeak. However, they would no longer be lightning-fast killing machines, vulnerable only to similar groups.

I don't know whether this is a desirable result. 'Zerg' connotes unskilled play, and organized raids represent very skilled play. It's just not the same skillset as dueling. If ZOS does decide, however, to break up large groups -- and I think the changes to siege and the addition of Detonation indicate they might -- this might be the best way to do it without breaking anything else.

Just a thought. What have I got wrong?

bring back 1.5 ultimate gen and i can get back to crushing 60 man zergs with 10 people kthxbai

krim · May 2015

Ulti gen... the fact that everyone generates ulti at the same rate... group of 40 vs 10... those 40 generate ulti at the same rate as the 10.

Teargrants · May 2015

pppontus wrote: »

Long range AOE CC? Range skills that actually really punish stacking groups of 10+? Think The Mage in AA, chain lightning?

I don't even know. Something needs to happen, fast.

Ryuho · May 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

Long range AOE CC? Range skills that actually really punish stacking groups of 10+? Think The Mage in AA, chain lightning?

I don't even know. Something needs to happen, fast.

YESSS this1 wants that

Saft · May 2015

Ryuho wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

Long range AOE CC? Range skills that actually really punish stacking groups of 10+? Think The Mage in AA, chain lightning?

I don't even know. Something needs to happen, fast.

YESSS this1 wants that

Magica detonation? except its worthless, but make it scale dmg with amount targets hit, then we got a real zerg buster!

vortexman11 · May 2015

NO

Im sorry, but can people stop giving ideas that will hinder smaller groups just as much as large groups?!! I said the exact same thing when they were talking about increased siege damage. Purge is used in large groups, zergs, small groups, and 1v1s. I use rapid maneuvers more in open field fights than in keep takes as its my (A DragonKnights) only way to escape.

I mean no offense...but how short sighted are the people when you come up with these ideas? All you guys see as an answer to zerging is to kill them all faster..stuff like not being able to purge massive siege DoTs, not being able to remove snares, and the craziest one which is this one shot skill that amplifies based on numbers..

Then when I post my idea on ultimate generation and how it is now unbalanced as a group of 10 000 people gain ultimate as quickly as a group of 2, I get laughed at.

Observant · May 2015

The game mechanics are mostly fine, it's the TTK and latency that are the real PVP issues.

Why are we trying to "Zerg Bust" an MMO that advertises large scale battles?

Snit · May 2015

Saft wrote: »

Magica detonation? except its worthless, but make it scale dmg with amount targets hit, then we got a real zerg buster!

Magicka Detonation, particularly the Proximity morph, is very powerful. However, it's better when used by zergs than against them.

bosmern_ESO · May 2015

From what I read, you want oils, meatbags, and flame ballistas to be the deciding factor in taking a keep.

You nerf purge and every keep will be almost impossible to take with defenders. when you go through the inner breach and are met with 5 oils, a meat bag, and like 3-5 fire ballistas, how do you expect to live?

Snit · May 2015

bosmern_ESO wrote: »

From what I read, you want oils, meatbags, and flame ballistas to be the deciding factor in taking a keep.

You nerf purge and every keep will be almost impossible to take with defenders. when you go through the inner breach and are met with 5 oils, a meat bag, and like 3-5 fire ballistas, how do you expect to live?

The OP advocates no changes to purge.

eliisra · May 2015

All these suggestions to nerf crucial skills, like Purge, heals, Barrier, Rapid and blah-blah to minimize zergs, it hurts small groups just as much.

I need those skills badly being in groups of 4-8 players to. Especially Rapid Maneuvre and Purge for magicka builds without full mobility and infinite dodge bot

Reduce max target or something instead, than full raids wont benefit as much. They will have to assign more players to support, loosing a fair amount if dmg opportunities. While it wont affects game play for smaller groups.

Anazasi · May 2015

Do not ever EVER EVER from this point on EVER mention the idea of AOE CAPS. This argument ruined the game at launch and if you go down that path again you will ruin the game again.

Xeven · May 2015

ITT Zerglings think they are "small groups", and the suggested changes will hurt them just as much.

Yeah, pretty much bro.

I am for nerfs across the board to all AOE buffs inside Cyrodiil. Barrier, Maneuver, Purge, Horn etc. They only encourage and reward zerg stacking. If you cant roll in a small group without these then you were being proped up to begin with.

SRIBES · May 2015

It would break apart groups for sure or require people to be more skilled. I think only purge should be gone, but templars should keep their cleanse and nbs should keep dark cloak. Rapid adds mobility for offense so it shouldn't be removed

s7732425ub17_ESO · May 2015

No. You completely missed the main reasons why zergs survive so easily.