LadyGP wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

This is why it seems the current combat team isnt talking with whatever team is making new sets.

Rushing fails on three fronts

1. There is no clear telegraph that you are about to be pulled. Why dont chains shoot out from the target and then pull after 1s. It should be a clear so enemies who get chained can react and block the chain.
2. When pulled it doesnt apply immunity which none of us should have to tell the combat team why this is a bad thing.
3. After those two get fixed we then have to ask the question why this set even does damage? You do the strongest effect in the game just to also do damage equivalent to an aoe burst skill that is a delayed timeable skill.

You can tell when you're about to get pulled and you have 2 seconds I believe to block it. There is a visual indicator that you're about to get pulled.

The problem is this set doesn't, IMO, work as the devs intended due to the clients/servers sometimes getting out of sync. That paired with the increased range (12m I think it got bumped up to..I could be wrong).. makes it a very big area that you can get pulled from.

Example, you passed through the area I clicked on to pull someone. On your screen you're past that spot, lets say X and are... 15m away (or some distance just making a point here). I land on X and the visual indicator goes off. Because of lag the 2 seconds is really like... 1s at best and because you've already passed through spot X and have your back to it you don't see the indicator. The server or your/my client think you're still within the 12m even though you're not so you get pulled in.

To your point about lack of cc immunity... I agree. When I was running in a ball group i would be the second puller (in case my lead choked on a pull). There were MANY times when he would pull and then I would pull just to the right/left of him and pull a whole second group into the bomb spot. Some of those people were ones that just got pulled by him.

I've been on the other side of this MANY times and it's such a pain in the butt. It's frustrating for sure. I don't think the set needs to be removed from cyro or the game as it adds an interesting dynamic to play styles but I do think it's not working as they intened and it's really hard to fix it due to it being a more of a networking issue.

This is just speculation on my part after using the set for... months and months and months in game.

This is not correct. You get pulled about 0.8s after the first animation effect. It takes about 0.4s for the chain to actually contact your character with no pronounced sound effect. The average human reaction time is realistically around 200-250ms. This is why most telegraphs aim for 1-1.5s so that you can recognize, decide, and then react in the timeframe.

Again this set fails on so many design fronts it is almost comical. It is the pure essence of spaghetti code, and the poster child reason that vengeance style skills need to be tested.

Compare how frequently you get pulled by a dark convergence now with it's extremely recognizable telegraph compared to rush of agony and I think that's a big part of the issue. Yes ROA supposedly has both a visual and audio effect but this can get lost among the myriad of other things happening, especially for inexperienced players that don't have a good idea of how to anticipate certain things happening.

General advice:
1) it only takes 6 players to flip a flag in cyrodiil (and 1 in imperial city) -- beyond that they cannot flip any faster. There's no need to stack so deep that you become super attractive to ball groups or solo bombers.

2) run 30k+ health unless you plan on being the bomber yourself, solo bombers specifically target lower health opponents stacked with allies to be the primary trigger for the vicious death explosion to destroy a stack of randoms milling around. You make yourself the rush of agony/dark convergence target by doing that. Having 30k health means you're less likely to be part of a chain reaction of deaths that cascade out from the bomb point.

3) Try to pay attention to your surroundings, ball groups and solo bombers still understand that a narrow passageway that is difficult to escape from brings the maximum impact of their damage. Gates, bridges, front flags and stairways of the 6 emperor keeps and outposts are just a few of their favorite targets. Pull sets somewhat mitigate the need for these so called choke points, but they are even more effective in those situations.

4) Even as little as it appears to affect a ball group, keep that siege trained on them. We have a lot of healing and shields but a well-defended keep with good combinations of oils being poured, meatbags and fire/cold fire ballistas/trebs in action causes even the best groups to use their defensive ultimates and continually expend resources keeping the group alive. Keep in mind they won't necessarily rush in immediately once the door goes down -- we tend to measure the response and get the lay of the land before committing to an offensive push. You need oils pouring onto front flags and side stairways to continually harass and drain resources and defensive ultimates, while other allies engage us along the way. We're also going to drink our immovable potions prior to rushing into a well defended keep, so don't entirely depend on being able to stun us under your siege. The place to commit to stuns and damage would be corner towers of the outer parts of keeps, or at the top of the stairs of inner parts of keeps, where we lose immovable and our potions are still on cooldown.

5) Because of the delay that's been added to ROA, members of the ball group are going to know where the pull is going to happen before the opponents do. As someone who usually plays a sorceror healer these days, I'm going to put my negate down either right before or right as you're being pulled into the bomb point. (Sorry in advance). So understand there's a good chance you're going to be in a negate as you're pulled, whether it shows up immediately on your screen or not. So I guess I'm saying to try to have a plan for when you are pulled that does not rely on using magicka to escape. The slippery CP star can be helpful, because likely you'll receive a stun of some kind immediately after the pull.

6) Sometimes when, the hammer is in play, during events like MYM when players already tend to stack a little more, or things are laggy, we don't even use ROA and just stun instead as damage rolls through. ROA can fail us or become unpredictable in lag, with pulls happening several seconds later than expected at times. Being able to break free as soon as you are able is essential. If you are newer to pvp this is the one single thing you must learn how to do to increase your survivability. Slippery cp can help here too, but you only get that once every 30 seconds and you can be stunned once every 7 seconds. Stamina sustain is paramount.

7) Learn the telltale signs when a ball group is about to attack. Roughly half of the players in the group will have red circles around them that travel with them due to proximity detonation being cast. More importantly though there will be one of them that jumps out in front of the rest. If you can learn to recognize this happening, THIS is the true ROA indicator. Ball groups understand this from playing against other ball groups, and it's difficult to get a good ROA pull on (the better) ball groups because of this. When we see this player jump out in front this is the cue to move out of the way while holding block. I realize this is easier said than done, especially with lag or a myriad of other things happening simultaneously. Some ROA users like to be a little sneaky, drinking a potion that gives immovability and invisibility (alliance health pot) prior to activating rush of agony. Blind corners are dangerous as well. If you can afford a wide berth around a corner, do so. And don't chase ball groups around corners on top floors of keeps.

Realizing that changes to how ROA works are not likely to happen immediately, the best way to be able to continue to enjoy pvp (especially MYM) is to learn how to avoid it and how to combat groups using it.

Kartalin wrote: »

Compare how frequently you get pulled by a dark convergence now with it's extremely recognizable telegraph compared to rush of agony and I think that's a big part of the issue. Yes ROA supposedly has both a visual and audio effect but this can get lost among the myriad of other things happening, especially for inexperienced players that don't have a good idea of how to anticipate certain things happening.

General advice:
1) it only takes 6 players to flip a flag in cyrodiil (and 1 in imperial city) -- beyond that they cannot flip any faster. There's no need to stack so deep that you become super attractive to ball groups or solo bombers.

2) run 30k+ health unless you plan on being the bomber yourself, solo bombers specifically target lower health opponents stacked with allies to be the primary trigger for the vicious death explosion to destroy a stack of randoms milling around. You make yourself the rush of agony/dark convergence target by doing that. Having 30k health means you're less likely to be part of a chain reaction of deaths that cascade out from the bomb point.

3) Try to pay attention to your surroundings, ball groups and solo bombers still understand that a narrow passageway that is difficult to escape from brings the maximum impact of their damage. Gates, bridges, front flags and stairways of the 6 emperor keeps and outposts are just a few of their favorite targets. Pull sets somewhat mitigate the need for these so called choke points, but they are even more effective in those situations.

4) Even as little as it appears to affect a ball group, keep that siege trained on them. We have a lot of healing and shields but a well-defended keep with good combinations of oils being poured, meatbags and fire/cold fire ballistas/trebs in action causes even the best groups to use their defensive ultimates and continually expend resources keeping the group alive. Keep in mind they won't necessarily rush in immediately once the door goes down -- we tend to measure the response and get the lay of the land before committing to an offensive push. You need oils pouring onto front flags and side stairways to continually harass and drain resources and defensive ultimates, while other allies engage us along the way. We're also going to drink our immovable potions prior to rushing into a well defended keep, so don't entirely depend on being able to stun us under your siege. The place to commit to stuns and damage would be corner towers of the outer parts of keeps, or at the top of the stairs of inner parts of keeps, where we lose immovable and our potions are still on cooldown.

5) Because of the delay that's been added to ROA, members of the ball group are going to know where the pull is going to happen before the opponents do. As someone who usually plays a sorceror healer these days, I'm going to put my negate down either right before or right as you're being pulled into the bomb point. (Sorry in advance). So understand there's a good chance you're going to be in a negate as you're pulled, whether it shows up immediately on your screen or not. So I guess I'm saying to try to have a plan for when you are pulled that does not rely on using magicka to escape. The slippery CP star can be helpful, because likely you'll receive a stun of some kind immediately after the pull.

6) Sometimes when, the hammer is in play, during events like MYM when players already tend to stack a little more, or things are laggy, we don't even use ROA and just stun instead as damage rolls through. ROA can fail us or become unpredictable in lag, with pulls happening several seconds later than expected at times. Being able to break free as soon as you are able is essential. If you are newer to pvp this is the one single thing you must learn how to do to increase your survivability. Slippery cp can help here too, but you only get that once every 30 seconds and you can be stunned once every 7 seconds. Stamina sustain is paramount.

7) Learn the telltale signs when a ball group is about to attack. Roughly half of the players in the group will have red circles around them that travel with them due to proximity detonation being cast. More importantly though there will be one of them that jumps out in front of the rest. If you can learn to recognize this happening, THIS is the true ROA indicator. Ball groups understand this from playing against other ball groups, and it's difficult to get a good ROA pull on (the better) ball groups because of this. When we see this player jump out in front this is the cue to move out of the way while holding block. I realize this is easier said than done, especially with lag or a myriad of other things happening simultaneously. Some ROA users like to be a little sneaky, drinking a potion that gives immovability and invisibility (alliance health pot) prior to activating rush of agony. Blind corners are dangerous as well. If you can afford a wide berth around a corner, do so. And don't chase ball groups around corners on top floors of keeps.

Realizing that changes to how ROA works are not likely to happen immediately, the best way to be able to continue to enjoy pvp (especially MYM) is to learn how to avoid it and how to combat groups using it.

This is a great post, Kartalin!

Especially like the very basic things that people can do like enable hostile AOE coloring and then make it a solid very loud color so that it always gets your attention. It will light up the moment that a bomber lights their Proxy up or casts their Destro/Northern Storm, both of which are clear tells that an attack is coming in the next 6-7 seconds (Proxy takes 8 seconds to detonate from the moment that it lights, so expect a gap-close at around P+6 seconds and damage at P+8 seconds).

These are the sorts of things that I roll my eyes at when people are like, "How was I supposed to know that a pull was coming??!" and it's like a big BRUH moment because it is literally being advertised by that group several seconds in advance. Some groups don't run Proxy (like mine) but it's still very obvious when an attack is coming if you know what to look for (which anyone who routinely plays in Cyrodiil should long have internalized).

That said, I agree with the set getting its tell improved, etc. which I have already detailed in a prior post. (Though this is likely a moot point as I am now expecting the set to be completely dumpstered in the next PTS, courtesy of this thread.)

Joy_Division wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence were designed to kill large groups, yet ironically are best used by organized large groups lol.

StaticWave wrote: »

Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence were designed to kill large groups, yet ironically are best used by organized large groups lol.

It says large groups, not ballgroup, which in the second sentence is revealed to mean zergs .
(large groups even when not grouped in group tool)

The problem with killing a ballgroup is not to get them stacked(so you can hit all at once) which they already are but to get enaugh dmg to reduce the hp of the ones you hit to 0 with all their defenses after destroying their shields before they can get healed up by 12 echoing vigor and 6 healer/support. Rush of agony is definitely not what players wanting to kill ballgroups asked for and not even worth using.
Better to use a dmg set like (mechanical acuity) or even go single target(to avoid 36%mitigation from major+minor evasion and cp star) to kill at least the one(s) you hit.

This set was designed for ballgroups(or bombers) to bomb(punish for stacking) players that are not stacked and is not a failed ballgroupcounter more effectively used by ballgroups like ballgroups like to claim.

I really don't get this take.

VD/RoA/DC aren't meant to kill zergs, they're meant to kill bad/undergeared players.

Basically sets to punch down on the underdog, because it requires a chain reaction from a kill happening in the first place, which are typically scrubs.

It's more or less a streamers set: take advantage of those you don't play as much as you/aren't as good as you, and leverage that to kill even more people.

lol, not only is that scrub a bad player, but they're actively throwing by participating and killing their team as a result.

VD/RoA/DC when used by a solo bomber end up killing mostly bad/undergeared players. When used by a ballgroup they kill everyone who gets pulled as 12 players/4-6dd with groupbuffed stats deal enaugh dmg to kill even a 50k hp 50k resist tank.

They are advertised as counter to zergs as you can also see in the dev comment in the screenshot. Why should bad players get punished for playing in groups but good players not?
It is necessary and in many games also intended that bad players play in bigger groups to compete with a smaller group of good players.
But bad or mixed group get wiped by 1 bomber when 1 player dies while elite groups can zerg unpunished without VD getting procced.

Bad groups get killed by smallscales and 1vXers.
A good group often dominates every fight.
A group of good players can often kill a group of bad players multiple times its size even without such tools so it seems like the large bad group was an equal match and their numerical advantage not unfair.

The issue with your take is you are making a distinction between between zergs / ball groups and bad/good players and projecting that into ZOS's statements, which made so such claim.

The idea that the RoA combo needs to be uber-powerful to punish all players for being in a group will quickly lead to an even more unhealthy Cyrodiil as the same logic could be used for all sorts of powerful sets to ensure good players in all sorts of situations are punished for the mistakes they make.

If the organized groups are incapable of being properly punished by the tools available in the game, that means whatever is enabling the good groups to survive is the problem, not that we need broken offensive tools.

But then ZOS did get rid of the one 5 piece set in Azureblight that these groups actually feared, so their motivations are certainly inconsistent and confusing.

One of your points is really well made. These organized groups currently are incapable of being punished by the tools in the game. Siege doesn't do a thing because of the stacked shields/heals, negates CAN be effective but you need to have more than 1 going to really deal a blow to them and not everyone in Cyro is going to want to run on a sorc. While Rush is a big part of the problem, there needs to be adjustments made to the cross/stacking of heals and shields as well. I think siege weapons need a buff as well. You watch these organized groups just stroll through cold fires and lancers like it's nothing, lol, that should be a bigger issue in itself

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Rushing Agony makes more reliable chokepoints and tight groups, but chokepoints still do exist, especially on flags. That’s where VD does its dirty work even without RoA.

Rushing Agony forms an artificial choke point in the middle of empty space. There's no need for this.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Basically sets to punch down on the underdog, because it requires a chain reaction from a kill happening in the first place, which are typically scrubs.

"lol, not only is that scrub a bad player, but they're actively throwing by participating and killing their team as a result."

This is a good summary of how Rushing Agony drives away new and casual players. They're punished just for trying to participate at all, and then mocked for not knowing or executing esoteric metagame counterplay. No wonder players don't bother coming back, who would want to when that's their first impression of this PvP?

Rushing Agony makes more reliable chokepoints and tight groups, but chokepoints still do exist, especially on flags. That’s where VD does its dirty work even without RoA.

VD working on natural choke points (flags, rams, corridors, tight groups, etc.) is fine game design, because the counterplay to that set is as clear as day to anyone as soon as they get hit by it a single time: Don't stand afk on those natural choke points for an extended period of time, especially if others are also standing there afk on that spot for an extended period of time.

What is not fine is that RoA creates those same choke points:
1. on demand
2. anywhere on the map
3. with no obvious telegraph (audio or visual, especially in lag and with all the clutter that currently exists in the game)
4. with bugs/interactions that get exacerbated with lag (that will always be part of the game)
5. while ignoring the basic game design rules surrounding CC and player agency

At least Dark Convergence does not have points 3 through 5, even though it is still an extremely strong set after all the nerfs and as such, it is barely complained about at all despite being another AoE mass pull set with potentially very high AoE burst damage.

StaticWave wrote: »

In the 1st clip, there is ZERO animation to indicate the NB was wearing RoA.

God's work. Thank you, it's surreal that people here literally don't believe that the telegraph fails like this all the freaking time. My ping is around 100, yet this is what I'm also constantly dealing with.

Really shouldn't have to say this, but Static and I are both pretty fast players even by sweatlord standards. If myself or Static find RoA this much of a pain, what chance do you think casual to mid players have?

Meanwhile, players using RoA? Think of the mid skill backups that occasionally helped the Patriots or Chiefs win all those super bowls, but never did much of anything on their own or for other teams.

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

I am not sure how one would quantify power of a set that isn't just sheer stats.

Don't need to. It's also an AoE burst damage proc with a massive base 1705 damage. Tarnished Nightmare is base 1129 damage. Both are/were short cooldown AoE burst procs with overloaded secondary effects and mechanics that are/were largely considered unfair and poorly designed for this PvP.

Tarnished was appropriately nerfed to be fair, it's still a loaded set that sees niche play, as it always should've been. If Tarnished was considered nerf worthy, RoA should've been launched into the sun by now. Even compared to pre-nerf Tarnished, RoA does more damage, has more secondary effects, has a larger effect on the battlefield, breaks game rules (not just bends them), sees the most use in an even more powerful strat (comp groups vs single target gankers)...

Joy_Division wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence were designed to kill large groups, yet ironically are best used by organized large groups lol.

StaticWave wrote: »

Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence were designed to kill large groups, yet ironically are best used by organized large groups lol.

It says large groups, not ballgroup, which in the second sentence is revealed to mean zergs .
(large groups even when not grouped in group tool)

The problem with killing a ballgroup is not to get them stacked(so you can hit all at once) which they already are but to get enaugh dmg to reduce the hp of the ones you hit to 0 with all their defenses after destroying their shields before they can get healed up by 12 echoing vigor and 6 healer/support. Rush of agony is definitely not what players wanting to kill ballgroups asked for and not even worth using.
Better to use a dmg set like (mechanical acuity) or even go single target(to avoid 36%mitigation from major+minor evasion and cp star) to kill at least the one(s) you hit.

This set was designed for ballgroups(or bombers) to bomb(punish for stacking) players that are not stacked and is not a failed ballgroupcounter more effectively used by ballgroups like ballgroups like to claim.

I really don't get this take.

VD/RoA/DC aren't meant to kill zergs, they're meant to kill bad/undergeared players.

Basically sets to punch down on the underdog, because it requires a chain reaction from a kill happening in the first place, which are typically scrubs.

It's more or less a streamers set: take advantage of those you don't play as much as you/aren't as good as you, and leverage that to kill even more people.

lol, not only is that scrub a bad player, but they're actively throwing by participating and killing their team as a result.

VD/RoA/DC when used by a solo bomber end up killing mostly bad/undergeared players. When used by a ballgroup they kill everyone who gets pulled as 12 players/4-6dd with groupbuffed stats deal enaugh dmg to kill even a 50k hp 50k resist tank.

They are advertised as counter to zergs as you can also see in the dev comment in the screenshot. Why should bad players get punished for playing in groups but good players not?
It is necessary and in many games also intended that bad players play in bigger groups to compete with a smaller group of good players.
But bad or mixed group get wiped by 1 bomber when 1 player dies while elite groups can zerg unpunished without VD getting procced.

Bad groups get killed by smallscales and 1vXers.
A good group often dominates every fight.
A group of good players can often kill a group of bad players multiple times its size even without such tools so it seems like the large bad group was an equal match and their numerical advantage not unfair.

The issue with your take is you are making a distinction between between zergs / ball groups and bad/good players and projecting that into ZOS's statements, which made so such claim.

The idea that the RoA combo needs to be uber-powerful to punish all players for being in a group will quickly lead to an even more unhealthy Cyrodiil as the same logic could be used for all sorts of powerful sets to ensure good players in all sorts of situations are punished for the mistakes they make.

If the organized groups are incapable of being properly punished by the tools available in the game, that means whatever is enabling the good groups to survive is the problem, not that we need broken offensive tools.

But then ZOS did get rid of the one 5 piece set in Azureblight that these groups actually feared, so their motivations are certainly inconsistent and confusing.

I was not asking to buff Rush of Agony!
I want it nerfed as it doesn’t kill ballgroups who are already stacked even if buffed (without additional burst in hights only a zerg/coordinared group can reach) but helps ballgroups stack&bomb spread players.


AvranSylt made distinction between good and bad players and claimed that VD/RoA/DC are intended to kill only the bad/undergeared players.

He is right that VD/RoA/DC kill mostly undergeared low hp/mitigation „bad“ players and tanky groups with no undergeared players including ballgroups can group without proccing and dying to VD and plaguebreak as not a single one of them dies.
(When used by solobomber, ballgroups can kill everyone)

However it is nonsense and should not be intended that counter to group kills only squishy groups and does not even proc on tank groups.

Against Ballgroup you need counters helping to kill thefirst when they are stacked like azureblight/deto rather than „counters“ stacking them foryou(dc/roa) and chainreaction killing the rest after killing a few.

Better to hit and kill a few of them or even one (with singletarget damage) than hitting them all stacked by RoA/DC not killing a single one nor proccing VD/PB.

Sluggy wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here is another video of Rush of Agony from my PoV in Cyrodiil during this MYM event:

https://youtu.be/BX51wefnT0E

Before RoA defenders come in and say I was lacking situational awareness, I'll just state the obvious things right now:

1) I know it was an outnumbered fight and the odds were against me
2) I know I was in the middle of the opposing faction

In fact, these fights are well within my capabilities and I was not in any immediate danger, as seen from 0:00 to 0:04. Yet at 0:05, I was pulled into a RoA proc that was OUTSIDE of my FoV. If it was a DC proc, I would have known FOR SURE because there would be a huge circle indicator on the ground, and I would just hold block. Simply put, I never knew there was a RoA user because the pull happened outside of my FoV, yet I was still pulled into the proc lol.

I have more videos of RoA pulls similar to this one, but I don't really think they're even necessary at this point. RoA does not have a clear initial visual indicator (big red circle on the ground), does not apply CC immunity, and pulls players well beyond its intended range due to latency or using certain mechanics. All of these things make the set really obnoxious to play against and has no place in PvP.

Absolutely this is the worst part. People say things like 'situational awareness' and 'watching opponents' is what stops this set but other than a vague sense of dread literally any time you fight more than one person that looks like they might be grouped there really isn't anything to observe most of the time.

The visual effects do not work most of the time due to lag. Even when they do it's often impossible to tell when anything actually happened. And even then there literally isn't enough time to respond even if you had peak-human fighter-pilot levels of reaction speed - which most of us just don't.

When I started playing again and had to get used to this set being prevalent everywhere I actually literally thought it wasn't blockable. There are many many many many times when I've been holding block for several seconds and it still managed to catch and pull me. And no, it's not because I was stunned, it's simply because it is often paired with a flood of other effects that effectively dos the local area and congest the network traffic so badly that it physically becomes impossible for the server to inform nearby clients before the effect has run its full course. As far as I can tell it's actually not dodgeable at all but honestly I don't know that for a fact. I'm just assuming because it's never once worked for me.

It’s honestly not dodgeable when it’s being slammed by comped groups. You MAY dodge the first pull but there’s at least 2-3 people in these comp groups running rush so that means even if you somehow dodge the first pull you’re definitely going to get yanked back again. It’s such a terrible meta that’s only going to keep the population down. The majority of this most recent event has been nothing by comped groups spamming RoA and VD almost everywhere on the map. Hopefully the Vengeance campaign gives the solo/casual players a better experience than whatever GH is currently

The set just isn’t good for the health of the game period. Any one reason why or taking a pick of any one broken mechanic is justification for an adjustment. The skill gap in pvp is large enough as it is. This set autofeeds pugs to ballgroups making the barrier for entry into pvp even higher. Its broken nature, cc rule defying, desync mega long pulls etc etc make it promblematic even for some of the best of the best pvpers out there. Almost unanimously pvp vets agree this set needs big changes. Even ballgroup players have admitted it’s so broken it’s feels unfair to use. If there aren’t any adjustments made by the next patch it’s honestly pretty insulting with how long we’ve been screaming this from the rooftops. Would be neat to see the community actually be heard.

StaticWave wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

Absolutely this is the worst part. People say things like 'situational awareness' and 'watching opponents' is what stops this set but other than a vague sense of dread literally any time you fight more than one person that looks like they might be grouped there really isn't anything to observe most of the time.

And that is why that argument does not hold any substance. Anyone spending enough time in Cyro would understand that when inside a large fight, nobody can really account for people that suddenly appear behind them (who were originally not in their FoV). You can't really predict where the RoA proc is going to appear from either because that would mean spending extra time to scan each target one by one. At best, you have 2-3 seconds to scan the battlefield before you get targeted by other players, so a quick scan is usually the move before you have to reposition/kite.

I mean, its very clear in the clip I posted. I was pulled into the RoA proc by someone that was entirely outside of my FoV. I didn't even get the chance to see where he was lol. That is not an issue of lacking awareness, that is an issue of RoA being a trash broken set that gets abused by ball groups and bombers.

Essentially the set removes the competitive nature of pvp because it is so out of balance.

I compared this set with dk chains either above or in another thread, to illustrate how powerful this set is from a numbers perspective.

All of the above issues could exist with chains, except this set procs in an aoe, so it doesn't disrupt just one person, it disrupts an very large area 113.1m2 (A = πr2 where r=6), it procs every eight seconds and doesn't aply immunity.

Chains hits one person, requires your toon to be engaged in actually pulling and you have to line it up. All of these things take time and skill to control another toon, as they should. Roa doesn't take skill and the proc damage hits fairly hard.

It is literally the poster child for broken sets. It's like an ultimate that hits every 8 seconds on demand. I would argue it is stronger than a lot of ultimates.

Vulkunne wrote: »

Look, I'm going to spell it out for you guys right now.

I'm tired of being called a 'bad player' just because your Ball Group is able to wipe the floor with me and everyone around me, with -zero- effort whatsoever. I don't care about anyone's philosophy we don't need no lofty speeches; the ball groups are taking advantage of a group buff system and sets that were not intended to make anyone invulnerable.

And that's what is happening. Ball groups need to be taken down a peg or else really what point is there in not just playing a game but getting into a fight where I have no chance to defend myself or counterattack, save for not being there at all. And I'm not in Cyrodiil anymore for the most part because of this.

Primarily, I am a solo player, generally by choice. So, the way things are, I have -zero- chance not just fighting like a group, where a couple solo could fight a group, but your ball groups are so strong, so fast, you have so much healing and buffs and everything else, no one can play against you dude. Try and get this thru your heads:

- You are not necessarily the best players in the game. For example, I know many solo players that are really tough. Being part of a ball group does not make you the best.
- Ball Groups are lazy. I happen to know several others who run in these groups, yeah, they respond to their orders but its all repetition and timing with all of them doing the same over and over again. Its fighting against a machine... like a really strong Trial mechanic.
- PvP stops when ball groups come around. I'm sorry/not sorry but it does. No one can play the game when you guys show up and ruin everyone's fun. Ball groups are like a plague on the game.
- Ball groups are a plague on the game. I've seen ball groups wipe entire servers worth of players. Like maybe a larger group, 10 to 15 (if that) and there's no one to stop you, no one who really can stop you and I think its all ego.
- Ego from ball groups and even some PvP Guilds are killing Cyrodiil PvP in this game. Like I was saying, I'm solo and I know what I'm doing. But just because you guys exploit sets, group mechanics and so forth doesn't make anyone a bad player or less than you. And that is the problem because I see the posts here and you guys don't know the truth. You don't want to even hear it. You just PvP for you, you want to look good and be seen and win every time.
- Ball group behavior is abusive. When you guys became so powerful that like the class skills we have and Alliance skills in our tool kit can't even touch you. Think about it. ZOS is allowing people to login to Cyrodiil completely unprepared and unable to play the game the way it is now. You guys are abusing so many people who deserve better. When those of us who feel this way thought about PvP, it wasn't to have to die repeatedly to people like you. We don't need that and you were never on our minds. That's not why we're there. We're not there to be abused. We're there to PvP yeah but who can PvP against a ball group? Even another ball group goes thru hell trying to bring down the other ball group. Tell me how this isn't wrong.

The sad thing is, there is less room for people to play this game when we cater so much to such a small group of people who don't provide support, they don't escort scroll runs, they mess around with scrolls even, they don't rez, they don't work with zone, they talk all day about how bad Elitist players are while displaying Elitist behavior themselves. People are starting to take notice, and I don't login or pay a sub for you to wet your ego. I login because I love the game and its fun but this needs to stop. Otherwise Cyrodiil will continue to empty out.

In short, ZOS needs to drain the swamp. ZOS, just do it. Hit 'em with another update 35. And the real players who know what they're doing and care about this game will still be here. Let these other guys move on because they are dead weight and have demonstrated so many times, that their only real passion is to promote themselves and spite the ones like me who serve as a painful reminder that there are other people in this game and this game is not for a few exclusive folks to just to do as they please. How ball group behavior isn't a violation of TOS is beyond me because this can't be right... and you know it.

I cannot like/love this post enough. it eloquently explains the exact problem.

If the devs/powers that be dont react to this, then there truly is no hope for this game.