Why is there often more skill delay on a 2 / 2 / 1 bar pop server during off-peak compared to a primetime tri-faction stack fight? I'm starting to think that servers are scaled down during off peak hours, including Cyrodiil ones. This is fine until 3-4 ball groups start fighting and lag the server to the point where no solo players can reliably get a combo off. If the servers do scale down, it's probably a smart, frugal decision but please please please monitor server load and scale back up on demand so the game is playable for non-ball group players.

What does lag look like?
Potions, skills and ultimates take MULTIPLE presses to trigger despite being off GCD. Dark convergence pull doesn't happen until 2 seconds after the aoe ability cast. Break free does not work for several seconds. I have videos showing 10+ attempts to activate ulti (shown by the flashing of the skill border on the skill bar) and 10+ on buffs and potion to the point where I just skip them altogether to maintain combo timing.

But what if I don't lag?
This thread doesn't affect you so move on. Many people do still lag even on the supposedly fixed PC-NA servers. I play from Australia and prefer a bombing playstyle that is very timing sensitive.

Why blame ball groups?
Because it only happens when organized ball groups play in a "dead" server (ie non-poplock, non-primetime). In fact, entire faction stacks of unorganized players rarely cause more lag than 12-24 members of a ball zerg.

What can be done?
You can't fix selfish ball zerg players crutching on lag at the expense of everybody else's smooth gameplay, so the fix has to be a combat / server one. If the developers or server engineers are receptive to investigating this, then many of us will be happy to provide timestamps and gameplay footage to help identify bottlenecks and optimize server scaling. Perhaps this is already part of the PVP backend fixes currently underway - in which case please clarify if it will be resolved as part of that project.