4. The MagNecro Bomber (NoProc)

How it works:
When you want to kill a ball group, you have to to the maths first: How many skills do you have that to do reasonably good damage against them in a short burst period? You will find that those are also mostly the skills you have in your Death Recap when fighting against THEM. As a rule of thumb, every skill that does more than 4k AoE damage against players is "okay". Furthermore, PvP burst works best when you can apply the damage as a "delayed" burst. An example: Inevitable Deto needs at worst 4 seconds to explode (but only maybe 2 against purging enemies), so you can combine its damage with maybe 1-2 other skill which are used after it. That's the reason MagSorcs are generally the best Ranged Deto users, as they can use ID even against single targets as a part of their delayed burst (4 seconds ID, 3 seconds curse, 2 seconds rage, + Overload Light Attack and finally Frags).
MagNecros have the most skills in this category of any class, namely: Blastbones and the Grave Robber self- synergy. Both do maybe 5k damage. combine it with a Deto of 8k damage and an ultimate of at least 7k damage, and you have reached more than 24k AoE damage in one burst. The problem here is reliability (Blastbones are REALLY unreliable) and your lack of execute skills.


a) equipment

Like a MagBlade bomber, I would experiment with certain sets to see what yields the best results. A good all-around choice is rattlecage. It is vital, though, that your jewelry is enchanted with the HARMONY trait.

b) skills

Buffs: Combat Prayer, Degeneration, Mist Form (you need to be a Vampire)
Debuffs: Razor Caltrops
main damage skills: Proxy OR Inevitable Deto -> Avid Boneyard -> Stalking Blastbones -> Vulcanic Rune -> Ultimate -> Self-Synergy.
Executes: Either Impulse (fire) or Hungry Scythe

If you use a Fire staff, add Impulse at least twice to it: One Impulse as the first skill that touches your victims, and multiple impulses as a finisher.
Furthermore, some skills need to be used in another order depending on whether you use Inevitable Detonation or Proxy.

c1) The Proxy Bomber playstyle
Proxy Necro bombers are good in situations where your glaring weakness compared to a bombblade, you lack of stealth, is not really relevant. An example would be a ball group hanging around at the second flag of a small keep. Proxy Necroes typically use a fire staff and Impulse, and also Eye-of-the Storm as Ultimate, as they need to be the centre of the explosions to make up for their missing 8% damage compared to other weapon types.

c2) The Inevitable Bomber playstyle
Inevitable Necro bombers are better on open field, as they don't have to go "all in": You can have multiple attempts to succeed, and will not die in the first attempt like a proxy bomber. However, you don't have a viable execute, as you will probably use a lightning staff, or a two handed weapon. Unlike the proxy bomber, you can effectively use a Dawnbreaker instead of Eye-of-the-Storm.

d) recommended: I would use cloak potions to replicate the bombblade playstyle.

Lord_Wrath wrote: »

ShortTripToHell wrote: »

I play in some sort of ball and I am certainly not the best(so take my advice with a pinch of salt). I think it should be doable, but aren't you creating a ball group to kill ball groups?

Did you just find the source of lag?!?

Ha, ha, Ironically yes. That was my original angle. The thought was a ball group that would actually have the campaign objectives in mind to form up and eliminate ball groups that were purely running around the keeps to farm AP. This can be frustrating at times as you wish to take an objective, secure it quickly as part of a thrust deeper in to enemy territory, and move on to the next one before being bogged down. This is a problem when you take one alliance keep and a ball group from the third alliance sweeps in and plays round and round the mulberry bush.

To be clear, I am not saying that a ball group is wrong, or not a legitimate form of play at all. I was just contemplating a counter with a more strategic outlook. They are harder to deal with, with smaller groups now (not wrong or unfair, just different) so I was interested in how they work as mindless weight of numbers wouldn't have worked with cross-healing disabled too.

I must say, I have really enjoyed input from the ball group sides too. It is interesting reading. All forms of play are legitimate in Cyro, in my opinion, (even if it makes me scream and pound the keyboard occasionally) because at the end of the day, it keeps Cyro populated. Lag is the real enemy and I won't blame any type of play style for causing the lag because it wouldn't exist if the pvp servers got some love and attention. Even I, as a filthy casual pvp'er can clearly see the improvement that quietly happens and mysteriously disappears, after midyear Mayhem...

addendum: Are game balance changes needed?

Without procsets, it is really hard for a normal stamina player to have any impact on a battle when a ball group is knocking on the main gate.

Thus, the only skill change that is really needed would be a Stamina equivalent for Inevitable Detonation.

The Undaunted skill "Trapping Webs" has seen many iterations, and neither made the skill particularly great. One could change it so its area debuff sticks to the targets and explodes when being removed.

This would still only be half the damage a normal detonation does, but it would be enough for a large zerg of stamina players to actually do something.

Since hardly anyone else uses purge frequently, this change would only hurt organised guild groups.

Kordai wrote: »

Sure speccing all towards one goal is great so long as you never have to fight anybody else.

Not to mention what what with 33% aoe damage reduction you'd be laughed at by any stam toon

And as long as people are thinking what you said, as long as no one as willing to sacrifice his or her 1vs1 ability, the problem remains.

One example: Yesterday my group of 7 was pushing against maybe 60 yells who had the hammer (while 20 other blue players where inside the keep) on 2 different occasions. As a rule of thumb, an organized group can defeat up to 5 times its numbers if they are very lucky, so when you calculate the impact of the other blue players, there were probably still too many yells there for us to defeat.

But because I gambled and assumed that among those 60 yells, there was no one who changed his or her build, the whole fight became a massacre.

Had a single player among those changed their build into something more useful than a Dueling/ Zerg Surfing build, I would not have dared to push; had 3 among those 60 yells changed their builds accordingly, they would have succeeded.


Battles are not won by Duelists, and have never been, no matter what movies and stories try to tell you. Coordination and force multipliers win battles. Ball groups are only as op as people make them by refusing to adapt.

Kordai wrote: »

But let me know what platform, time and campaign, because I’d love to play against players like that.

You have to understand that personal skill and gear has nothing to do with it.

You could have, say, 8 people with LeveL 30 fighting naked who use no other skills than Wall of Frost, healing, Wall of Frost, Purge and Heavy Attacks, and the result would not have been much different.

1) A normal zerg surfer uses almost exlusively projectile based damage, and DoT damage.
2) A normal Duelist type player does not like getting slowed and rooted every few seconds, and does not do nearly enough damage to get through even some modest healing.

Attacking an organized group with these kind of skills is like throwing bricks at a tank: ineffective unless in extreme numbers.

3) Furthermore, because an organized group can communicate, they can outmanoevre an enemy zerg and take it apart piece by piece

As a normal single player, you cannot do anything about 3), but you can sacrifice your pride and change your setup to be not like 1) or 2). Yes, you might loose a 1vs1 situation because of this, but your impact on the Cyrodiil would be vastly more pronounced. If only maybe 5% of the players running in a zerg would do that, and pick the right counterplay and counterskill, Cyrodiil would be vastly different from what it is now.

And, to be honest, real 1vs1 situations outside of the zerg lanes are rare. Typically you meet the same people belonging to the same guilds playing the same meta classes over and over again.

How an enemy ball group can be useful for your faction - an example

Yesterday, there was an interesting situation on Ravenwatch PC EU (the main European campaign), and maybe I can use it to demonstrate how useful ball groups can be if they play on the other faction.

The situation was the following:

The Reds had both blues scrolls, one in Farra, one in Drakelowe.
There were plenty of organised groups around.

So what happened:

The reds were defending their homekeeps and 4 scrolls. Given our numbers (DC side), it was unrealistic to get any scroll home. Luckily, Roleplay Circle (the European equivalent of Dracarys and a pioneer of the ball group fighting style) was attacking Farra with the intention of farming as many red players as possible using the blue scroll as bait. Since I consider them the strongest ball group, I had confidence that they would bind a huge number of reds, including the organised ones.

The strongest red ball group on this day was Nova, and though I am not sure if they had started yet, I was convinced they would attack Roleplay Circle sooner or later, because both ball groups tend to attack one another viciously (so much for the idea that "ball groups don't fight each other").

This meant that the second scroll in Drakelowe was virtually abandoned, because the ball groups did a great job at distracting the other faction.

So I asked the LfG leader on the blue side to take Alessia while we would take care of Harluns, Sejanus and the Scroll.

Luckily, the second yell ball group, Lagacy, was at Drakelowe and had it opened it for us. Since they seemed to be rather confused by our presence, we took the scroll out without much resistance and brought it home.


In short: Enemy ball groups are great at binding forces, both enemy forces and your own. As long as your faction's core interest is not concerned, let them do their thing and use the situation to gain the advantage elsewhere.

Remember that the border outposts are NOT your core concern. It is actually quite great if you can find an enemy ball group that is dumb enough to guard your border for you. That's why I typically let them live and farm there for some minutes unless there is nothing else to do.


It is also important to recognise the guild names, both on your side and on the enemy's: Too often I see someone claiming "Help! Ballgroup is attacking castle X", only to port there and see them destroyed within 6 seconds because the player failed to identify them. There are huge differences in quality amongst different groups. Some "ball groups" die within seconds on every occasion, whilst other can keep 50 enemy players occupied for hours. Some (like the Kiras or my own group) aren't ball groups at all, so you might need a different fighting style against them. So it's really vital to recognise them. This is even true on your own side: There are some groups you can safely support fighting, because they typically win, and others who you should not follow.

Why the ball group playstyle is NOT OP.

disclaimer: try not to copy the victorious group's skill setup - Either go full small scale (only self- sufficient brawler type players) or go full medium scale (where every player is a capable off-healer). A mix of both makes you vulnerable when you fight close to enemy keeps due to your lack of coherence (either your healers will be killed or your brawlers). Multiple good ball groups tried this setup this week, and either their kpm or even their kdr was not as impressive as they used to have.



That being said, this video is rather representative of the vast majority of ball groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxgGntXj6rk

Although you see the typical things you associate with a ball group (Eye-of-the-Storm and Synergy dump, lots of cross healing, a preference for chokepoints), you can also easily recognize what their weaknesses are:

1) First and foremost, there is a blatant lack of ranged firepower, and an inability to focus fire. If only half of them had used a thing as simple as a Heavy Lightning or Resto staff attack on the obvious target (which are not the wardens or the DK, obviously), it would have forced 5 person group to retreat and regroup.

From what I can see, only the top three groups on each campaign are able to give up their ball "formation" when needed, and kill spread-out targets with a sufficient KPM (kills per minute rating). Even in a full group setup, there are classes like MagSorcs, StamWardens and Magblades who retain a lot of single target killing power - if they are prepared for it. All the other "ball groups" are virtually helpless when facing a non- chokepoint situation.

2) Secondly, the ball group group leader's decisions revolve around breaking Line of Sight and looking for chokepoints. While this can be the right way to fight when outnumbered, you have to be able to crush the opposition when you outnumber the other group 2:1.

Remember when I stated that a group of 5-6 players can halt a ballgroups advance for long enough for allied players to arrive? You don't even have to beat them like in this video. Typically a group like this will then claim that they died because "they were zerged". NO. They died because they were bad, and should feel bad for not being able to crush a smaller enemy group before it was too late. They can only blame their own ineptitude, or their group leader's lack of judgement.

3) Ball groups generally show an amazing amount of individual discipline. Here you can see that it is TOO MUCH. There is a difference between getting baited into a group of small scalers (typically the more urgent problem with groups of low discipline) and effectively defending yourself.

4) You can easily spot that a lot of the red players were not really familiar with what they were doing. Though we are in a situation where mindlessly spamming Rapid Regen can carry you far, it can only carry you so far. The reason behind this is that the vast majority of ball group just copied the skills and playstyles of some real ball group's youtube videos without understanding the intend of the skill's allocation.


This even applies to the victorious group:

Extrawelt's group is not as optimized as it may seem - in fact, there are only 2 Wardens instead of 3, and both Wardens are on a Duelist type setup which rapidly lose effectiveness when you are more than 4 players. This makes the video even more impressive, as they fought in a "hard mode" against the red group instead of just synergy dumping them with a 40k AoE damage burst. - so DO NOT COPY IT UNLESS YOU PLAY WITH FEWER THAN 4 PLAYERS

Remember: The best small "ball breaker" group consists of 3 Wardens, 1 Necro, 1 DK/Temp/Sorc (though the DK is preferable), all wearing Harmony, who use any non- ultimate synergy which does more than 6k AoE damage, but who are also ALL able to cross heal (so that competent opposition is not able to single out the "healers").

5) Lastly, a ball group is only as good as the person who leads it. You can have the exactly same group lead by another person, and it can perform vastly different. PvP is more than just picking the right build and doing your job. Oftentimes, the group leader is the main weakpoint of such a group. If s/he is good enough to make a difference, and you can kill him (twice, because of Necro rez), the balance shifts in your favor. Weak ball groups totally break apart if you manage to do that, and even good ones will be forced to play defensively until they regain initiative.

8. The Nurglitch

On the PTS, there is the following set:

Plaguebreak – Medium
2 – Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
3 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 – Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – Dealing direct damage to an enemy turns them into a Plague Carrier for 10 seconds, dealing Disease Damage over the duration. If the plague is removed early, it explodes, infecting enemies within 8 meters of the carrier dealing Disease Damage. The explosion deals an additional 10% per enemy hit. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds and scales off of the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

For all means and purposes, this gives the Stamina classes a much needed Invitable Detonation. However, if the tooltipp is correct, (This effect can occur once every 10 seconds) it actually won't be enough to counter a ballgroup. If you want to use it, makes sure, OTHERS are using it as well, and combine it with one of the approaches mentioned above.

Also, please give feedback to the Devs regarding damage numbers when you use it. They followed my suggestion above and made it significantly weaker than Inevitable Detonation, because it's a delicate balancing act: Too much damage, and you destroy group play, too little and no one uses it; additionally it should not be particularly useful against solo players, but useful enough that players still equip it. With time, there should be additional opportunities to change the numbers until it's good (enough).

This thread is so good, thanks for all the insightful suggestions! I liked the siege combo trap mention especially because you don't need to have a particular build with it and anyone can make use of it.