Let’s talk about these sets…

Danse_Mayhem · February 2022

Vicious death
Plaguebreak
Dark convergence

I think all 3 need an adjustment…

Vicious death
“Omg what kinda zergling thinks VD is OP?”
Yeah, it’s been widely accepted that this set is a fair and reasonable counter to zergs and fighting outnumbered but it’s started to go in a bad direction…

Sure this set can counter a bigger group, but it can also decimate smaller scale play. Let’s be real here bombers, the best and cleanest bombs we get are against groups of 6-8 on a ram / flag, and NOT an actual Zerg. A glass cannon NB can nuke ONE single player within 8m of you if you’re playing as a duo, and you’ll be hit with a 20k+ proc if it crits. Should that be a thing??
I’m all for countering a Zerg, or a ball group but my suggestion; is that the proc scales, just like Proxy det does. This way, it counters the actual zergs, and doesn’t just demolish any chance at small scale play.
This has completely become a tool used by the zergs / ball groups to better effect than they would ever be countered by.

Plaguebreak
It’s been said a hundred times on these forums but this set is so obviously overturned ;
- Proc on any damage with no cool down
- Explodes on death
- Explodes on cleanse
- Explosion scales
- User doesn’t need to land the final blow
- Decent DOT damage even on non cleanse/kill
- Can proc on guards/NPCs
- Basically best in slot for any PVP damage build and can also be BIS for some PVE situations
- Is used so much now that it’s basically stopped any and all cleanse in cyro, a basic game mechanic and dot builds are now unstoppable

We already have a proc on kill set (VD) so we do not need this thing with all of its extras too. (See the video of the guy hitting 80k plaguebreak procs on players.
Yes this is another Zerg counter but again, it also works so much better when used by a Zerg to decimate small scale play.
To get this straight… 8 people is not a Zerg. Players stood 8m apart are not stacked.
A small group of 6 do not “deserve” a 30k proc for being soft stacked and playing objectives. A solo player trying to defend a keep does not “deserve” a 60k proc from using guards as line of sight.
This set has pretty much killed all objectives based gameplay (Keeps, flags, resources) because of this.

My suggestion ; Remove the scaling.
Even with a flat 3-4K proc, that’s still 30-40k in a group of 10 if you dot them all up, which is still a crazy high damage proc set. This would remain useful against large zergs of players if you hit them all with it, and it wouldn’t decimate small groups with minimal effort. It also wouldn’t nuke the whole ground flood or a keep when a single guard dies.

Dark convergence
This is the worst one by far. Sure it was nerfed so it doesn’t one shot people on a second pull, but it’s still extremely busted.
- The set eliminates all need for careful positioning and timing, as you just dump all ultis on the pinhead that players are pulled to and it’s instant GG.
- It still pulls people off walls, leading to botched siege defences, loss of lancers and getting glitched into floors.
- It sometimes pulls players through walls / doors.
- It often pulls wayyyy outside of its circle.
- Sure it can be blocked, but many groups just stagger the procs, making the second one essentially invisible as it’s in the same AOE as the first.
- Again, yet another tool that’s used so much more effectively by Zergs and ball groups to annihilate smaller groups / solo players.
- Again, another set that can dominate certain aspects of PVE, as well as PVP.
- It makes magcro ridiculously OP, to the point of the same copy paste build being everywhere in pvp, spamming the same combo and just kiting in between ults, with zero downside. (I know, because I used this same combo on its release date as magcro emperor)
My suggestion is honestly to remove this. I know ZOS haven’t done this before but just accept the L, accept this is terrible for the game and delete, or at least completely rework so it doesn’t perform anything like currently. I don’t know a single player who thinks this set is health for the game.
Sure it can work against bigger groups, but more often than not you’ll find your much smaller group, or just yourself if solo, pulled from miles away into a stack of negates / colossus and AOE spam by a large group.

Dark convergence makes the first 2 a hundred times worse, and maybe VD / PB wouldn’t even be so broken in their current state without it, but all 3 need a look.

Consider this also. Using one of these 3 sets as your damage set on a mag/stam build, is in every way better than using a stat based damage set like Stuhns, new moon, clever etc. sure your stats go down, and tooltips go down slightly, but not nearly enough to warrant dropping one of these carry sets. These sets don’t reward a well made build or practiced play, they often punish you for playing nearby others on the same faction who don’t have survivability.

Cyrodil is now completely full of these terrible designed sets, and players just marching around mindlessly spamming AOEs at each other whilst the sets do all of the work.
As a release player who’s played through some scary and cheap metas, this is by far the very worst as build variety and even class identity is dead, since any combo of these 3 sets is just superior to anything else right now, and requires zero skill to use.

ZOS please hear your players. Please play pvp and see what these sets are doing to the game, and please do something.
Usual performance complaining from pvpers aside, literally not a single person I’ve spoken to at many corners of the community thinks these carry sets are healthy for pvp

Cheers

Artim_X · February 2022

Vicious Death teaches someone to play better. A small group built proper will survive a bomb and counter the enemy. It's always funny when you see a flash of enemy aoe heading towards a flag. Just use a detect pot and counter. Other than that, players should be punished for haphazardly bunching up.

Plague Break resurrected dot builds after they were buffed and subsequently nerfed into oblivion. Technically one can still purge if they're willing to take the explosion to the face. If alone it's not a big deal, but in a group well that's the whole point of the set, which is to counter groups spamming purge without a care in the world. IMO the explosion on death seems a bit extra and doesn't relate to punishing purge spammers. That aspect could be removed and set would still be strong.

Dark Convergence is bugged in relation to the examples you gave. If those were fixed the set would be fine as is, since it can be properly countered now. However, if it were up to me I'd make the effect rely on proximity of player to enemy so that lt would not affect people who are on top of keeps at the very least. Once an ememy is in range aoes will trigger it as expected.

xDeusEJRx · February 2022

I still think zos needs to properly nerf proc sets, the 'proc set scaling' never properly nerfed anything because most procs had low base damage and only became a problem when they released actual strong procs like Hrothgar, Plaguebreak, Dark convergence and the proc set scaling just exacerbated this problem to a really bad scale to the point where people were getting 30k hrothgars, 30k plaguebreaks, 40k+ dark convergence(in its prime). They never should've allowed procs to scale, I think they should've just introduced a global proc cap. Like why do procs need to do over 10k damage in an instant and be better than a normal rotation? They should've always capped it at 8k and been done with it

Hell even some of the most used procs from before are still quite strong like Zaans, caluurions, etc. Giving proc set scaling and free base damage back during flames of ambition just exacerbated the proc set problem in this game.

My suggestion would honestly be revert proc set scaling and just implement a cap on how much procs can do in any instance. There's 0 reason procs need to be able to do 15k-30k damage ever. Maybe a few exceptions to this rule like VD, but generally no procs need to hit that hard.

Danse_Mayhem · February 2022

Yeah removing proc set scales would be ideal. Currently we have a situation where the same few proc sets are king, and dominating PVP with zero build / class variety, and a hundred or so proc sets that are just unusable due to low base damage and bad scaling.

Winterborn is an example. That used to be somewhat usable on a mag warden as a damage front bar proc set, but now it’s damage is so low, that you’d be crazy to run it over one of these 3 problem sets.

Also in reply to the first comment, yes there are counters to these sets.
- Don’t ever stand within 8m of anyone because you don’t know if their resistance will withstand a bomb (VD)
- Don’t ever go inside keeps (PB)
- Don’t ever slot a purge (PB)
- Don’t play in groups larger than 1 (PB/VD)
- Don’t try to solo defend objectives where guards are present (PB)
- Block the moment you see the AOE for convergence (DC) or just permablock always in pvp because of the staggered casts

The list goes on, of ridiculous counters that people seem to come up with to defend these 3 busted sets, whilst literally hundreds of other sets in eso gather dust because they aren’t a carry like these.
If you aren’t running a DC + PB/DC build atm in cyrodil, you’re basically gimping yourself and it’s fast becoming the only thing you see out there

GrimmLegion · February 2022

What's the deal with everyone always blaming the sets when they are getting killed? There are other elements at play such was the attack blocked? Was it a crit? (PD can not crit since it deals a % more for each other near them when it goes off, same true for Dark Converg.) The issue is people only play in ball groups where it's already hard to fight them because of all the lag and other issues. These sets were added to cut that down or at least know when you had to split up making you better at reading the battlefield. The issue I've been seeing is these zergs are all using the same setups around the few people they are nuking. If they added something more like decrease the damage based on how many friendly people are within x distance then that would solve that issue. Even adding something like when one dark converg goes off, if another one happens with x distance, it negates that one still adding the cooldown to the other version. When you see the entire server stacking and running all of this, then you know there is and issue there. But when one guy runs this he's getting mowed over and very few times is anything except for maybe a Necro or Nightblade bomber going to kill a zerg these days with everyone having 40k+ and 20 HoTs going off. It's a numbers game, the more you have the better you will do. Targeting these sets is not the answer, targeting the "abuse" of these sets should be the focus since there is no down side to running them in groups of people. They can add something like pale order, the more people the less damage. And for the record I dont run these sets and I'm good nuking people down but I'm kinda more solo/small group and I pick my targets not just see someone on the other side and run in guns blazin But thats just my 2 cents.

xDeusEJRx · February 2022

GrimmLegion wrote: »

What's the deal with everyone always blaming the sets when they are getting killed? There are other elements at play such was the attack blocked? Was it a crit? (PD can not crit since it deals a % more for each other near them when it goes off, same true for Dark Converg.) The issue is people only play in ball groups where it's already hard to fight them because of all the lag and other issues. These sets were added to cut that down or at least know when you had to split up making you better at reading the battlefield. The issue I've been seeing is these zergs are all using the same setups around the few people they are nuking. If they added something more like decrease the damage based on how many friendly people are within x distance then that would solve that issue. Even adding something like when one dark converg goes off, if another one happens with x distance, it negates that one still adding the cooldown to the other version. When you see the entire server stacking and running all of this, then you know there is and issue there. But when one guy runs this he's getting mowed over and very few times is anything except for maybe a Necro or Nightblade bomber going to kill a zerg these days with everyone having 40k+ and 20 HoTs going off. It's a numbers game, the more you have the better you will do. Targeting these sets is not the answer, targeting the "abuse" of these sets should be the focus since there is no down side to running them in groups of people. They can add something like pale order, the more people the less damage. And for the record I dont run these sets and I'm good nuking people down but I'm kinda more solo/small group and I pick my targets not just see someone on the other side and run in guns blazin But thats just my 2 cents.

Because the sets are carrying people's damage, without the sets their damage is pretty non-existent. I've had more gankers than I can count attempt to gank me but fail because their caluurion can't proc enough and they're following up with 2k-3k surprise attacks but their caluurion reaches 8k+ damage so they just go and hide back in stealth until they can proc caluurions again. Without procs carrying their rotation most of them go back to dealing no damage.
And zos seems intent on adding more sets to do the work for people with sets to snare/immobilize and sap ulti next patch. It's funny how zos wanted to tackle the "proc meta" back in Flames of Ambition, acknowledging how bad procs were then they created dark convergence and hrothgar that could both proc 30k-40k damage on solo players.

It's literally the sets that are the problem, not the players because their entire damage rotation is dependent on the proc damage, which is why it's the set's faults.

Like does ZOS want to stifle procs or make a proc meta? because they flip-flop their stance about it every few months.

jaws343 · February 2022

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

GrimmLegion wrote: »

What's the deal with everyone always blaming the sets when they are getting killed? There are other elements at play such was the attack blocked? Was it a crit? (PD can not crit since it deals a % more for each other near them when it goes off, same true for Dark Converg.) The issue is people only play in ball groups where it's already hard to fight them because of all the lag and other issues. These sets were added to cut that down or at least know when you had to split up making you better at reading the battlefield. The issue I've been seeing is these zergs are all using the same setups around the few people they are nuking. If they added something more like decrease the damage based on how many friendly people are within x distance then that would solve that issue. Even adding something like when one dark converg goes off, if another one happens with x distance, it negates that one still adding the cooldown to the other version. When you see the entire server stacking and running all of this, then you know there is and issue there. But when one guy runs this he's getting mowed over and very few times is anything except for maybe a Necro or Nightblade bomber going to kill a zerg these days with everyone having 40k+ and 20 HoTs going off. It's a numbers game, the more you have the better you will do. Targeting these sets is not the answer, targeting the "abuse" of these sets should be the focus since there is no down side to running them in groups of people. They can add something like pale order, the more people the less damage. And for the record I dont run these sets and I'm good nuking people down but I'm kinda more solo/small group and I pick my targets not just see someone on the other side and run in guns blazin But thats just my 2 cents.

Because the sets are carrying people's damage, without the sets their damage is pretty non-existent. I've had more gankers than I can count attempt to gank me but fail because their caluurion can't proc enough and they're following up with 2k-3k surprise attacks but their caluurion reaches 8k+ damage so they just go and hide back in stealth until they can proc caluurions again. Without procs carrying their rotation most of them go back to dealing no damage.
And zos seems intent on adding more sets to do the work for people with sets to snare/immobilize and sap ulti next patch. It's funny how zos wanted to tackle the "proc meta" back in Flames of Ambition, acknowledging how bad procs were then they created dark convergence and hrothgar that could both proc 30k-40k damage on solo players.

It's literally the sets that are the problem, not the players because their entire damage rotation is dependent on the proc damage, which is why it's the set's faults.

Like does ZOS want to stifle procs or make a proc meta? because they flip-flop their stance about it every few months.

That's a bit of a stretch. While I do agree that proc sets provide means to shift damage from skills to sets and in some cases are certainly overtuned, many of the players who are effectively using these sets would still roll over most players on pure stat builds. And players who aren't really that skilled are not doing anything nearly effective with these sets.

And honestly, only the skilled players running these sets is important. A zerg of awful players spamming aoes is just as deadly as the same zerg wearing any of these sets.

neferpitou73 · February 2022

I'd rather see the first two removed for the simple reason that they punish you for things completely outside of your control. You could be the best player ever, have the best build ever, have non-existent lag and still die because some idiot with 16khp decided to run into the fight next to you and get himself get blown up.

I've actually had to tell people in zone to just stay away from my group because they decided to run into us when we were fighting ball groups and get us blown up.

Danse_Mayhem · February 2022

Unfortunately the problem is not that only skilled players are dealing damage with these sets.
The issue is that anyone can slap on a combo of these 3 sets and do well. They just have to randomly throw out ground abilities for DC and eventually someone that’s pulled in will probably nuke everyone else who got pulled. It’s high reward, zero risk, zero skill gameplay.

And yes (I can’t quote it for some reason) but that’s why I suggested adjustments to the first 2 also, because the proc is totally out of your control, and can even be triggered by trolls going on other factions purposefully getting themselves killed near you / purging in groups

Larcomar · February 2022

neferpitou73 wrote: »

I'd rather see the first two removed for the simple reason that they punish you for things completely outside of your control. You could be the best player ever, have the best build ever, have non-existent lag and still die because some idiot with 16khp decided to run into the fight next to you and get himself get blown up.

I've actually had to tell people in zone to just stay away from my group because they decided to run into us when we were fighting ball groups and get us blown up.

Or, as I discovered running with my guild over pvp, someone's running a pet. Yes, that 20k health twilight matriah which dies to two attacks blows up too. You along with it. It's total cheese, but there are players that actively target pets to get the plaguebreak proc off.

neferpitou73 · February 2022

Larcomar wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

I'd rather see the first two removed for the simple reason that they punish you for things completely outside of your control. You could be the best player ever, have the best build ever, have non-existent lag and still die because some idiot with 16khp decided to run into the fight next to you and get himself get blown up.

I've actually had to tell people in zone to just stay away from my group because they decided to run into us when we were fighting ball groups and get us blown up.

Or, as I discovered running with my guild over pvp, someone's running a pet. Yes, that 20k health twilight matriah which dies to two attacks blows up too. You along with it. It's total cheese, but there are players that actively target pets to get the plaguebreak proc off.

I'm curious if it procs off blastbones as well. I haven't tested it yet. But it makes that skill a total liability.

Necrotech_Master · February 2022

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Larcomar wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

I'd rather see the first two removed for the simple reason that they punish you for things completely outside of your control. You could be the best player ever, have the best build ever, have non-existent lag and still die because some idiot with 16khp decided to run into the fight next to you and get himself get blown up.

I've actually had to tell people in zone to just stay away from my group because they decided to run into us when we were fighting ball groups and get us blown up.

Or, as I discovered running with my guild over pvp, someone's running a pet. Yes, that 20k health twilight matriah which dies to two attacks blows up too. You along with it. It's total cheese, but there are players that actively target pets to get the plaguebreak proc off.

I'm curious if it procs off blastbones as well. I haven't tested it yet. But it makes that skill a total liability.

i can confirm it definitely does, regardless if the blastbones blew itself up or was killed before it could do its thing

in fact i always try to pop one of those even with a light attack lol

the blastbones is not reliable though because unless the necromancer is using it in melee range, the explosion almost always happens away from other people because the skeleton is running into the enemy

TechMaybeHic · February 2022

I have varying levels on these 3.

I'm not as bothered with VD, but could revisit when it's not kind of second fiddle to plague break

Plague Break, I like the idea of it giving a DOT build some bite when purged. I'd like it's single target buffed a good bit, but remove it doing damage to others. Have it only do damage to whoever cast the purge so intelligent use can happen rather than randoms blowing up allies next to them.

DC; get rid of the pull.

xDeusEJRx · March 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

GrimmLegion wrote: »

What's the deal with everyone always blaming the sets when they are getting killed? There are other elements at play such was the attack blocked? Was it a crit? (PD can not crit since it deals a % more for each other near them when it goes off, same true for Dark Converg.) The issue is people only play in ball groups where it's already hard to fight them because of all the lag and other issues. These sets were added to cut that down or at least know when you had to split up making you better at reading the battlefield. The issue I've been seeing is these zergs are all using the same setups around the few people they are nuking. If they added something more like decrease the damage based on how many friendly people are within x distance then that would solve that issue. Even adding something like when one dark converg goes off, if another one happens with x distance, it negates that one still adding the cooldown to the other version. When you see the entire server stacking and running all of this, then you know there is and issue there. But when one guy runs this he's getting mowed over and very few times is anything except for maybe a Necro or Nightblade bomber going to kill a zerg these days with everyone having 40k+ and 20 HoTs going off. It's a numbers game, the more you have the better you will do. Targeting these sets is not the answer, targeting the "abuse" of these sets should be the focus since there is no down side to running them in groups of people. They can add something like pale order, the more people the less damage. And for the record I dont run these sets and I'm good nuking people down but I'm kinda more solo/small group and I pick my targets not just see someone on the other side and run in guns blazin But thats just my 2 cents.

Because the sets are carrying people's damage, without the sets their damage is pretty non-existent. I've had more gankers than I can count attempt to gank me but fail because their caluurion can't proc enough and they're following up with 2k-3k surprise attacks but their caluurion reaches 8k+ damage so they just go and hide back in stealth until they can proc caluurions again. Without procs carrying their rotation most of them go back to dealing no damage.
And zos seems intent on adding more sets to do the work for people with sets to snare/immobilize and sap ulti next patch. It's funny how zos wanted to tackle the "proc meta" back in Flames of Ambition, acknowledging how bad procs were then they created dark convergence and hrothgar that could both proc 30k-40k damage on solo players.

It's literally the sets that are the problem, not the players because their entire damage rotation is dependent on the proc damage, which is why it's the set's faults.

Like does ZOS want to stifle procs or make a proc meta? because they flip-flop their stance about it every few months.

That's a bit of a stretch. While I do agree that proc sets provide means to shift damage from skills to sets and in some cases are certainly overtuned, many of the players who are effectively using these sets would still roll over most players on pure stat builds. And players who aren't really that skilled are not doing anything nearly effective with these sets.

And honestly, only the skilled players running these sets is important. A zerg of awful players spamming aoes is just as deadly as the same zerg wearing any of these sets.

What you say is true, but I've seen tons of players run their rotation based around their procs, not their procs complimenting their rotations. Like with convergence I more often than not get pulled randomly with no one having in mind what to follow up with. Most people's rotations are the procs, not the procs being apart of their damage rotation. I'm well aware the good players will kill without, but most of the lesser skilled players are quite literally just using their procs to carry the way the play and nothing else.

But tbh I disagree, I think a zerg of "awful" players running these sets can be bad, especially when they overbuff sets for no reason like when Hrothgar and DC first came out, they were clearly overpowered and every zerg was using it even not being skilled enough to use it properly but procs = success.
And the direction the game is in, ZOS seems to not intend to stop handing out free proc sets that do actions players should be doing themselves, like with their new Nunatuk CC set, I can imagine players using it just to slow/immobilize players instead of doing it themselves considering lots of people only use Dark Convergence JUST to pull players around, not even for the damage.

xFocused · March 2022

My biggest problem with DC is the pull as others said. It should not be able to pull me off the top balcony of a keep like Nik and make me fall to the ground only to get zerged down. PB isn't too much of a issue since I assume most seasoned PvP players know by now not to purge, lol