Is it really fair??? (Hard counters in game)

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

I want to keep this thread very simple. This isn't about class balance, it is about hard counters to certain builds and why I do not think they should exist. Some of these hard counters are:
- Piercing mark/Detect pots
- Reflective scales
- Shieldbreaker
I'll try to illustrate the problem with three examples
1) A magicka nightblade, very skilled player, fights several enemies at once. He cannot tank all of their damage so he has to kite them and quickly burst down some of his opponents. Now there are 4 people on him and he tries to enter stealth, he uses shadow image to teleport away from the group and attempts to cloak but he has been marked, so the enemies see him, gap close to him and kill him. Nightblades especially magicka nightblades NEED cloak in certain situations, because they do not have healing passives and burst heals like templars, dks and wardens and they do not have extra shields or streak like sorcerers. There needs to be some way for nightblades to mitigate damage and piercing mark/ detect pots completely destroys that.
2) Lets stick with the magicka nightblade. We are using a staff build, our offensive skills are perhaps swallow soul/crippling crasp/flame reach and we run into a magicka dragonknight. All he has to do is keep reflective scales active, which is easy since it has a 4 second duration and we cannot do any damage to him whatsoever, anything we do apart from healing will only hurt us! A decent magicka dragonknight simply cannot be killed by this kind of build...should we just accept that?
3)A magicka sorcerer, using shields is fighting a templar healer. All of a sudden another player appears and starts light attacking with his bow. This player is using the shieldsbreaker set and oblivion damage enchants. The sorcerer is taking 1k damage per light attack and his only heal is healing ward (which takes 6 seconds to work, all the time youre taking damage tho) and ofc his other shields, so he has absolutely no way of healing the damage of this second player. Unless he is able to burst the shieldbreaker down in seconds (which is impossible with a templar healer nearby or if hes a decent player) he will die, no matter what he does.

I am not saying counters shouldn't exist in the game, like healing debuffs, like aoes that pull nightblades out of cloak, like cp passives that make you deal more damage against damage shields, BUT hard counters, which simply kill a certain build in 99,9% of all situations ruin good gamplay.

I will probably hear these two things a lot so please let me answer them beforehand:
1) "But counters are good, you have to be SMAAART and tactical to use them, so you should win."
- My dear zergling, just because you run piercing mark, which allows your ZEEERRGGGG to chase down solo player nightblades, doesn't mean you're playing tactically. In fact such mechanics hurt combat tactitcs as there is absolutely no counter play to them.
2) "Sorcs are strong anyway, they deserve it when you use shield breaker on them"
- As I've stated above, this isn't a discussion on class balance. And once you use shield breaker, sorcerers become the weakest opponents out there, thats what the problem is. No matter how strong the class is, no matter how good your build is, a hard counter completely destroys all that.

Please let me know what you think

Lieblingsjunge · June 2017

Reflective scales is not a problem. It's not even worth running anyway. There's barely projectiles you can nerf in this game.
And if it is - you just wait it out. There's no way the DK can keep spamming reflective scales while doing damage. So it shouldn't do much to you. And as you said- Shadow Image / Cloak gets you out of harms way usually.

Detect pots / Mark: Of course cloak / sneak need counters. They put a penalty on dodge roll, streak and similar skills - so why should they not have a counter to mark / cloak.
And tbf, if you're that much of a Xv1-player that you slot Mark, just to counter 1(!!) out of the 5 classes in the game, then you must reaaally hate Nightblades huh. Nightblades are their own best counters - and that's positive.

Shieldbreaker exists as a counter to shields - that's good. Shields are overperforming. Although I agree that they need to do something with Ligthting Shieldbreaker if they haven't already. But if that's fixed - there shouldn't be any problemw ith this set. Sorcs need to ditch a skill for a heal if they consider this a problem. Sure - it's annoying when someone build entirely to counter one class, and it shows how much of a Xv1 you are, slotting a set or a skill solemnly to counter one class, out of the 5.

MarekT_T · June 2017

Piercing Mark is annoying but fine when a single NB is announcing their presence. It will just be more satisfying when they get put down.
But when you're testing yourself against a group when alone, and you hear mark pop again.. and again.. There is a problem. The community who experiences this is quite small, so no change will likely be made; however, Piercing Mark is undeniably overperforming in groups vs single players. It's in my own kit and I want it gone. Truly the mark of a weak Nightblade, pun intended.

SodanTok · June 2017

Just FYI for
2. In this scenario, scales are hard counter to your ability to kill him. Nothing wrong here. Leave him be or force him waste all resources on countering your light attacks.
3. This scenario is impossible to happen. Someone spamming shieldbreaker wont kill sorc and sorc will never stay in fight he has chance to lose. Is shieldbreaker counter? It is, but hardly hard...

Piercing mark is hard counter, more to stamblades than magblades (since they can actually use hard counter to this hard counter), but it is rare skill and competent NB have no problem dealing with it. Tho I would say it should not disable cloak (so you can still use it to get defensive boost and crits)

Aedaryl · June 2017

1) Cloak is actually overperforming, it's just too good now that's work, and it need a nerf on regen/cost increase like streak or mistform.

But a potion countering (not a good counter for a sorc cuz you can't still attack the palyer) a skill is so stupid, like piercing mark destroying a gameplay is also stupid.

Balance cost by nerf how it can be spammed and remove piercing mark and detect potion.

2) Not being able to attack someone at all because he have one skill is just a bad mechanic, NB need a skill being non reflectable.

Anyway, this game is make for counter magicka : Negate, Eclipse, reflecting scales, spell wall, so much counter against magicka not a single one against stamina, seems weird no ?

3) Shieldbreaker is the most silly thing in that game : alone, a sorc can kill a noob spamming it, but when you are outnumbered, you can't, cuz even if you streak away, the noob can just gap close you and still dealing you uncounterable damage.

Also, shields aren't performing, only shieldstacking is : make annulment and harness not stacking and sorc is balanced. Also remove the cps star that increase damage on shield. Is there a cp increaseing damage against bloking target ? Or one agaisnt dodging target ? No.

ChunkyCat · June 2017

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

Sylosi · June 2017

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

1) A magicka nightblade, very skilled player, fights several enemies at once. He cannot tank all of their damage so he has to kite them and quickly burst down some of his opponents. Now there are 4 people on him and he tries to enter stealth, he uses shadow image to teleport away from the group and attempts to cloak but he has been marked, so the enemies see him, gap close to him and kill him. Nightblades especially magicka nightblades NEED cloak in certain situations, because they do not have healing passives and burst heals like templars, dks and wardens and they do not have extra shields or streak like sorcerers. There needs to be some way for nightblades to mitigate damage and piercing mark/ detect pots completely destroys that.

Invisibility is a bad example, because as a mechanic in any sort of open world type PvP it is simply impossible to balance, it is far too one sided in terms of information and then normally breaks a pretty fundamental notion in PvP of risk vs reward, because normally it makes it far too easy for a player to try, fail then simply disengage with invisibility and not get punished for bad play / being outplayed rather than lose as they would on a build/class without invisibility. (this also applies to extreme mobility)

You can balance that to a degree in smaller instanced PvP modes, because you can design it so objectives can't be capped/contested whilst invisible and that disengaging from a fight you would lose actually has a penalty, not only in losing an objective, but in the score ticking away so you get punished by that for wasting time disengaging a fight.

So whilst detect pots are too strong in one sense, they are being used against a mechanic that is completely broken in somewhere like Cyrodil, the only way to balance a bad mechanic like invisibility in somewhere like Cyrodil is simply not to have it (and that goes for crouch also), oh and discussing balance in terms of 1 guy fighting multiple people is not very useful.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

Nope, I am not saying magblade is godmode. What I am saying is that piercing mark takes away the one skill that helps magblades survive. Theres still a lot of counters to cloak, its very easily broken, but if you cant use cloak at all there is very little a magblade can do in an outnumbered situation compared to other classes who have powerful heals, streak etc.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Aedaryl wrote: »

1) Cloak is actually overperforming, it's just too good now that's work, and it need a nerf on regen/cost increase like streak or mistform.

But a potion countering (not a good counter for a sorc cuz you can't still attack the palyer) a skill is so stupid, like piercing mark destroying a gameplay is also stupid.

Balance cost by nerf how it can be spammed and remove piercing mark and detect potion.

2) Not being able to attack someone at all because he have one skill is just a bad mechanic, NB need a skill being non reflectable.

Anyway, this game is make for counter magicka : Negate, Eclipse, reflecting scales, spell wall, so much counter against magicka not a single one against stamina, seems weird no ?

3) Shieldbreaker is the most silly thing in that game : alone, a sorc can kill a noob spamming it, but when you are outnumbered, you can't, cuz even if you streak away, the noob can just gap close you and still dealing you uncounterable damage.

Also, shields aren't performing, only shieldstacking is : make annulment and harness not stacking and sorc is balanced. Also remove the cps star that increase damage on shield. Is there a cp increaseing damage against bloking target ? Or one agaisnt dodging target ? No.

I agree with most of you points, but cloak isnt overperforming. I know it is an annoying skill, I know it can be frustrating if an enemy player just cloaks away

. However, cloak is really the only defensive ability that nightblades have. They do not have a burst heal in their skill lines, they do not have a shield and they do not have strong defensive buffs like major protection/major mending.

ChunkyCat · June 2017

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

if you cant use cloak at all there is very little a magblade can do in an outnumbered situation compared to other classes who have powerful heals, streak etc.

Templar healers and streaking Sorcs are tough opponents for everyone, not just mag blades. But those two opponents eventually run out of health just like everyone else.

Your premis is that your cloak is ineffective because of that ONE example of someone using piercing mark while there are numerous opponents attacking you, therefore piercing mark is unfair.

That's just flat out illogical.

Berenhir · June 2017

If you wanna be a one man army, you gotta slot your healer's purge yourself, won't you?

ChunkyCat · June 2017

There's your flaw. You want to be a one man army in a Massive Multiplayer game.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

@Yoohoo4411

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

if you cant use cloak at all there is very little a magblade can do in an outnumbered situation compared to other classes who have powerful heals, streak etc.

Templar healers and streaking Sorcs are tough opponents for everyone, not just mag blades. But those two opponents eventually run out of health just like everyone else.

Your premis is that your cloak is ineffective because of that ONE example of someone using piercing mark while there are numerous opponents attacking you, therefore piercing mark is unfair.

That's just flat out illogical.

That is not an argument, simply calling my comment illogical does not make it so. Cloak isn't ineffective, but piercing mark makes it ineffective. The imbalance comes from the fact that there are no direct counter to dk and templar and warden "survival" skills.
And your point with everyone running out of health is wrong also. Why does everyone run out of health. If I fight multiple opponents most of the time I still end up killing them. And it should be this way, if you play better you should be rewarded, hard counters kill that though. No matter how good you play, a hard counter makes you lose (most of the time anyway).

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Berenhir wrote: »

If you wanna be a one man army, you gotta slot your healer's purge yourself, won't you?

The alliance war skill "purge" does not remove piercing mark. It only removes dots I believe.

Keep_Door · June 2017

TL:DR

Yes it is fair.

ChunkyCat · June 2017

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

@Yoohoo4411

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

if you cant use cloak at all there is very little a magblade can do in an outnumbered situation compared to other classes who have powerful heals, streak etc.

Templar healers and streaking Sorcs are tough opponents for everyone, not just mag blades. But those two opponents eventually run out of health just like everyone else.

Your premis is that your cloak is ineffective because of that ONE example of someone using piercing mark while there are numerous opponents attacking you, therefore piercing mark is unfair.

That's just flat out illogical.

That is not an argument, simply calling my comment illogical does not make it so. Cloak isn't ineffective, but piercing mark makes it ineffective. The imbalance comes from the fact that there are no direct counter to dk and templar and warden "survival" skills.
And your point with everyone running out of health is wrong also. Why does everyone run out of health. If I fight multiple opponents most of the time I still end up killing them. And it should be this way, if you play better you should be rewarded, hard counters kill that though. No matter how good you play, a hard counter makes you lose (most of the time anyway).

So it's unfair that the multiple opponents you're trying to kill use an ability that in turn kills you, because, after all, you're a good player that usually kills multiple opponents.

Makes perfect sense.

Leandor · June 2017

Players expecting to have uncounterable tools at their disposal that allow them to win any and all fights should only be playing strictly single player games. 'Nuff said.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

@Yoohoo4411

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

@Yoohoo4411

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Yoohoo4411 wrote: »

The premise of your example is that the magicka night blade is SUPPOSED to survive an encounter against multiple enemies.

Bro, the magicka night blade isn't god mode. If the magicka night blade can kill off a group of players, kudos. But you can't get butt hurt if you die in the process. Play to win every fight, but eventually you're going to run out of health.

That's not because the game is imbalanced, that's because there are multiple adversaries attacking you.

if you cant use cloak at all there is very little a magblade can do in an outnumbered situation compared to other classes who have powerful heals, streak etc.

Templar healers and streaking Sorcs are tough opponents for everyone, not just mag blades. But those two opponents eventually run out of health just like everyone else.

Your premis is that your cloak is ineffective because of that ONE example of someone using piercing mark while there are numerous opponents attacking you, therefore piercing mark is unfair.

That's just flat out illogical.

That is not an argument, simply calling my comment illogical does not make it so. Cloak isn't ineffective, but piercing mark makes it ineffective. The imbalance comes from the fact that there are no direct counter to dk and templar and warden "survival" skills.
And your point with everyone running out of health is wrong also. Why does everyone run out of health. If I fight multiple opponents most of the time I still end up killing them. And it should be this way, if you play better you should be rewarded, hard counters kill that though. No matter how good you play, a hard counter makes you lose (most of the time anyway).

So it's unfair that the multiple opponents you're trying to kill use an ability that in turn kills you, because, after all, you're a good player that usually kills multiple opponents.

Makes perfect sense.

That's not what I said, twisting my words doesn't make you right.
The multiple or single opponent(s) have a number of abilities at their disposal that are capable of killing me. I in turn have abilities to kill them. The issue are certain skills/sets that make the fight terribly one sided, they take away my means of healing/staying alive or dealing damage without impairing the enemies effectiveness in combat at all.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Leandor wrote: »

Players expecting to have uncounterable tools at their disposal that allow them to win any and all fights should only be playing strictly single player games. 'Nuff said.

Thats the thing, hard counters are uncounterable tools. Shieldbreaker for instance CANNOT be countered by a magicka sorcerer and there is no counter to piercing mark, nightblades have no way of removing it...

LjAnimalchin · June 2017

I can't believe its halfway through 2017 and people are still crying about cloak, like a bunch of babies that didn't develop object permanence yet.
If cloak is overperforming so is breath of life, annulment, hardened ward, streak, dark exchange, vigor, rally etc...
Except they aren't are they? And neither is cloak. It's just different from what your class does. Please scrap these silly ideas of honor and such, implying a nightblade should stand and fight like a man, when most people play this game for fun.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

LjAnimalchin wrote: »

I can't believe its halfway through 2017 and people are still crying about cloak, like a bunch of babies that didn't develop object permanence yet.
If cloak is overperforming so is breath of life, annulment, hardened ward, streak, dark exchange, vigor, rally etc...
Except they aren't are they? And neither is cloak. It's just different from what your class does. Please scrap these silly ideas of honor and such, implying a nightblade should stand and fight like a man, when most people play this game for fun.

Well said

Cloak is really a necessary tool for nightblades, I guess people just don't like the way it works but abilities from other classes are arguably better (streak, breath of life etc.) so I really don't get the hate on cloak ^^.

fred4 · June 2017

I play a solo magblade. Any other class, if I am focused by multiple competent players, I am dead for sure. With my magblade I have a chance to escape or not engage a zerg in the first place. That is a very strong skill. Yes, being marked is a total pain, but against a single player, or against two or three inexperienced players, it really isn't a problem. It means I shield. It means I start using the barrier or resto ultimate. I can still run and use the environment. In fact, I use Mark myself, and quite a few other players have lately gotten away from me though clever use of buildings in IC.

Hard countering Mark with Efficient Purge is a bit of a problem, since it only clears two effects and doesn't prioritise the mark.

The TL;DR, though, is that I don't encounter any of the above often enough to worry about it. Shield Breaker users are rare. I can kind of deal with a single such opponent and, if not, I cloak away. Wings don't seem popular among DKs. Yes, they make life difficult, but it is untrue that magblade has no counters. You could run Force Pulse / Crushing Shock. I have Concealed Weapon on my cloak bar purely for the speed buff. I also use it against mag DKs. Yes, it's frustrating. You have to mix it up, use some of your other skills when you can, use Fear, use your ultimates. Skilled DKs are often too tanky for me to kill one way or the other. The odd unskilled, wings-spamming one, I have literally killed by spamming Concealed Weapon.

Leandor · June 2017

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

Players expecting to have uncounterable tools at their disposal that allow them to win any and all fights should only be playing strictly single player games. 'Nuff said.

Thats the thing, hard counters are uncounterable tools. Shieldbreaker for instance CANNOT be countered by a magicka sorcerer and there is no counter to piercing mark, nightblades have no way of removing it...

Shieldbreaker can be countered by not using shields and gearing the same way for survival like all other classes do. Mark can be countered the same way. Every strength must have an unavoidable weakness to balance it. That is the principle of balancing. If you feel differently, my first statement is valid.

WuffyCerulei · June 2017

Piercing mark is a great way to keep gankers from ganking. No one likes em. Reflective Scales also helps DKs fight against magicka sorcs, who hit like a truck. I always point it out to DK friends who pvp to use that skill in order to reflect crystal frags and cc the sorcs. As for Shieldbreaker, it's another good counter against sorcs. I main a sorc, and I know their potency. Getting damage in past the shields is one great way to get them down.

And I see you forgot cost increase poisons. I use a stam one to screw over any stam players.

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Leandor wrote: »

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

Players expecting to have uncounterable tools at their disposal that allow them to win any and all fights should only be playing strictly single player games. 'Nuff said.

Thats the thing, hard counters are uncounterable tools. Shieldbreaker for instance CANNOT be countered by a magicka sorcerer and there is no counter to piercing mark, nightblades have no way of removing it...

Shieldbreaker can be countered by not using shields and gearing the same way for survival like all other classes do. Mark can be countered the same way. Every strength must have an unavoidable weakness to balance it. That is the principle of balancing. If you feel differently, my first statement is valid.

Gearing like other classes do to counter shield breaker? I am sorry but that is simply not possible, do you think smashing on impregnable armour and desert rose like a dk will somehow eliminate a sorcerers need for shields? No it wont, the only heals magicka sorceres or nightblades have are unreliable.
And yes perhaps every strength SHOULD have an unavoidable weakness, however there are no weaknesses that apply specifically to certain builds, like stamina sorcerers... so you want certain classes&builds to get rekt by a setup that counters them, while other builds just dont have to worry about that.

leepalmer95 · June 2017

Aedaryl wrote: »

1) Cloak is actually overperforming, it's just too good now that's work, and it need a nerf on regen/cost increase like streak or mistform.

But a potion countering (not a good counter for a sorc cuz you can't still attack the palyer) a skill is so stupid, like piercing mark destroying a gameplay is also stupid.

Balance cost by nerf how it can be spammed and remove piercing mark and detect potion.

2) Not being able to attack someone at all because he have one skill is just a bad mechanic, NB need a skill being non reflectable.

Anyway, this game is make for counter magicka : Negate, Eclipse, reflecting scales, spell wall, so much counter against magicka not a single one against stamina, seems weird no ?

3) Shieldbreaker is the most silly thing in that game : alone, a sorc can kill a noob spamming it, but when you are outnumbered, you can't, cuz even if you streak away, the noob can just gap close you and still dealing you uncounterable damage.

Also, shields aren't performing, only shieldstacking is : make annulment and harness not stacking and sorc is balanced. Also remove the cps star that increase damage on shield. Is there a cp increaseing damage against bloking target ? Or one agaisnt dodging target ? No.

1. No its not, slot and aoe, use a detect pot...

2, nbs can use crushing shock like other ranged builds

3. Shieldbreaker is stupid, sorc shields are fine, the cp star for increasing shield dmg is balance because it has a counter called bastion.

IZZEFlameLash · June 2017

You know, it is kinda hilarious to see all these counters are unfair because a magblade wants to win every encounter.

Cloak needs to be countered by something. It is annoying as is already because a decent nightblade will already have been gone from the range of AoE or the radius of detect pots. Found like really far away by the time their cloak timer run out. Cloak atm is the best getaway skill. Even when cloak wasn't working correctly, actual decent people got away with cloaking everything thrown at them. I am not a decent player but even I could get away with cloaking. Watching the groupmates of the person I just killed looking for me in the wrong area.

Reflective scale is really costly and if they spam that thing against you, maybe see what they do when they are out of juice real quick. Because a single cast cost 3k+ (I cannot recall the exact cost because I stopped slotting this on my DKs for a while). For what it costs it does not even reflect much. Also 4 projectile limits for 4 seconds for 3k magicka cost? No thanks. Unless I have a suicidal urge to run out of magicka and die.

Shieldbreaker isn't even that big of a deal. Just better off to break the shield with huge damage attacks than using this crap unless you feel like trolling. Easily outhealed. I encountered a stamblade using this on me on my magsorc. And I shrugged it off, healing myself and killed the guy.

You should perhaps slot skills that others have slotted to counter your class/build/playstyle. Because others sacrificed their precious skill slots to counter few classes/builds. And those counters are perfectly fine because it costed them other skills those people might find use for. So slot counter to counters.

fred4 · June 2017

OP, you've clearly made up your mind to argue with everything we come up with. I'm not sure the problem is cloak, specifically, but it's just really hard, with 10 abilities and 2 ultimates, to come up with a build that isn't (hard) countered in some way. I share your annoyance when I am hard countered. The bottom line, for me, is that doesn't happen very often. Clearly the people who counter me sacrificed something to slot those counters.

As for stamsorcs having no counters, how about spamming Crushing Shock? Fasalla has been changed, but a defiling build using that set was arguably also a counter, since I can think of no stamsorc who doesn't run Hurricane. If they are a Tremorscale cancer build, then consider Forward Momentum. I run that skill on magicka and stamina toons alike and am never in range long enough for them to finish me off. Being rooted or snared is my personal pet peeve, thus I sacrifice things to run Forward Momentum even on magicka builds, and I sacrifice Rally on stamina builds.

You can argue about how these are not "hard" counters ... but ... whatever.

Jurand80 · June 2017

i am a msorc speced out to detect and kill nbs. running det pots, det poisons and SA. they are everywhere and they are nowhere uuuuuUUUUUUuuuuu.....

det pots are my fav. i love the look on little kittens face when he starts taking damage and tries to cloak and cloak and dies xD

https://youtu.be/e-B5vCLAoqw

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

Jurand80 wrote: »

i am a msorc speced out to detect and kill nbs. running det pots, det poisons and SA. they are everywhere and they are nowhere uuuuuUUUUUUuuuuu.....

det pots are my fav. i love the look on little kittens face when he starts taking damage and tries to cloak and cloak and dies xD

Whats your point?

And how would you feel when those nightblades all used shieldbreaker and rekt you instead?

Ectheliontnacil · June 2017

@IZZESparkling

IZZESparkling wrote: »

...
You should perhaps slot skills that others have slotted to counter your class/build/playstyle. Because others sacrificed their precious skill slots to counter few classes/builds. And those counters are perfectly fine because it costed them other skills those people might find use for. So slot counter to counters.

Yes, counters cost skills slots. The problem with that however is that zerglings (group players) DO NOT need all their skill slots in most cases. As part of a zerg you get healed, you dont have to worry about cc'ing opponents and you dont require burst combos to finish off your enemies. So a zergling is easily able to give up some skills for piercing mark, able to give up a set bonus for shield breaker or to swap out his potions for detect pots. [Also, cost poisons are really nasty when used by a group that outnumbers you...].
My point here is, that hard counters are always more advantageous for the large group and NOT for a solo player or small group (2-3 people) player.
I play solo 95% of my time in cyrodiil and so it is impossible for me to slot counters to specific builds or even counters to hard counters to my build (WOW its getting complicated here XD ). The reason being that I am limited to a certain amount of gear pieces and skill and I must retain the ability to heal, cc and deal damage.

So in conclusion I would say that hard counters can make a skilled, solo play style completely ineffective. There are already enough mechanics out there to harm solo gameplay, there i really no need for hard counters.

I hope you get what I am trying to say here and I hope you can agree with me on this ^^.