I’m going to try not to ramble here but this question has to be asked, WTF is going in PvP as a whole? We’re going another patch without even a small step towards balancing the lack of mobilty, and moving towards PvP that truly supports diverse builds and use of all armor types. I feel confident that the majority of PvPers are tired of playing a game that feels like you’re waking through knee deep mud. Or like you’re punished for not being a tank blob. The most recently emerged meta is that of slow moving, snare tanks that rely on AOE damage.

If you step into BGs, especially as a solo player, chances are you’re going to be pitted against one or two teams of tether tanks. They often win unless you get lucky enough to have some awesome pugs with you. But they don’t usually win by much because they’re not terribly effective just very hard to kill. And what really gets me is that if it wasn’t for the rest of us, people who try to play normal builds, who try and play medium armor or maybe light, we are punished in this meta. If it wasn’t for players like us these groups wouldn’t even have anyone to kill because they’d all sit there in a circle and tether each other until the match ends. Thats not a joke, it literally happens. Deaths counts that top out at maybe 1-3 per player in a death match. And this is not limited to BGs, it’s all over Cyro as well, except there you have the option of walking away as literally 4-5 people struggle to take you down in medium armor. Well this AOE snare/tank meta whatever you want to call it isn’t that new or unknown, there’s no way ZOS doesn’t know about it.

So why am I posting this in PTS. Look at the sets they’re introducing this patch, almost all of them are tanky sets featuring resistances, one rewards you just for sitting there and holding block and it brings up a mini permafrost with no *** cool down. Now whether or not that set is any good is almost besides the point. Where is the combat teams head at? What exactly are they thinking? They’re introducing, as sets, the most problematic, dynamic combat destroying attributes and abilities. These sets encourage builds that do nothing but sit there. Hopefully we see the worst of these sets nerfed before live (looking at you curse eater). Every patch they bring in some busted sets and inevitably at least one makes it through and we spend several months sufffeing until it’s nerfed.

Some good things are in this patch, and I’m more or less on board with the race balances, but I’m confounded by the fact that despite everything this game as been through in the past year, we’re still wasting time on the worst aspects of PvP instead of moving in the direction of healthy, skill based combat that rewards decent builds and doesn’t make it a completely uphill battle for people actually trying to play this game and not just jumping on every broken aspect.