Absurd PvP stealth gank build with subclassing

Theignson · January 7

Here is a ridiculous build . See the >40K damage in 1.4 seconds below from a stealthed player in back of a zerg.

All that is required is Recuperative treatise (Arcanist herald of tome) Crystal weapon (Sorc Dark magic) on a NB with Winterborn. I don't know the other sets but possibly jerrals.

This is a hugely amped up version of the old Winterborn gank build

Use one attack: stealth heavy attack bow cancelled by Crushing Shock.

I survived only because I immediately blocked after the first GCD and my concentrated barrier kicked in.

This is NOT the player's name. My faction had about 15 players vs the 60 on the other faction. This attack came from stealth from somewhere in the huge zerg .

96.071s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Recuperative Treatise for 1958.
[96.074s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crystal Weapon for 3298.
[96.079s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Heavy Attack (Bow) for 3206.
[96.082s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Fiery Weapon for 2859.
[96.084s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Sundered for 1428.
[96.090s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 1323.
[96.360s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1323.
[96.362s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned Weapon for 2201.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crushing Shock for 2459.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1359.
[96.368s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Burning for 710.
[96.372s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned for 1433.
[96.438s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Winterborn for 2071.
[96.571s(redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crystal Weapon for 2839.
[96.575s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Light Attack (Lightning) for 3338.
[97.420s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 0 (Absorbed: 1543).
[97.423s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 705.
[97.424s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 707.
97.427s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 533 (Absorbed: 957).
[97.431s] (redacted (redacted stealthed zergling) Player hits your block with Concussion for 435.
[97.748s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Light Attack (Lightning) for 538.

I hear a lot of newer players claim "he cheated, he hit me with (3-5) abilities at once". This is how its done, with cancelling you can make all your attacks hit at once. Here Fifteen damaging abilities hit at once (in .5 seconds). Note the second light attack that procced the second crystal weapon hit in the first GCD (but its cancelled ability hit in the second GCD). I found that interesting

This makes a mockery of PvP in my opinion, especially when outnumbered and playing solo

imPDA · January 7

Recuperative Treatise is Arcanist > Herald of the Tome skill, it is casted beforehand and it proc on damage from class abilities, automatically, so it is out of GCD.

Crystal Weapon is the same, Sorcerer > Dark Magic, but it proc on LA/HA, so it is out of GCD too.

Heavy Attack (Bow) - there is GCD between LA/HA.

Fiery Weapon - glyph from bow, obviously. Glyphs as out of GCD, it has separate CD.

Sundered, Burning - status effects, out of GCD.

Crushing Shock x3 x2 - two casts, 1 second of GCD between them. Each Crushing Shock generates 3 damages, because it hits with 3 different damages. (696 Flame Damage 696 Frost Damage, and 696 Shock Damage)

Poisoned Weapon - poison glyph from lightning staff, procced when hit by crushing shock from the front bar.

Crystal Weapon again - second charge (one skill has 2 charges, second is also much weaker, and we can see it clearly from log) (The first hit deals 2091 Physical Damage and the second deals 836 Physical Damage)

Light Attack (Lightning) - ~0.5s after bow HA probably because of travel time. Not a surprise.

Winterborn - proc set, out of GCD, it has its own CD.

Burning, Concussion - status effects, out of GCD.

So, what is the problem? They charged HA from bow from backbar with Crystal Weapon and Recuperative Treatise casted in advance, then switched to front bar and pressed Crushing Shock twice with LA in between. It is not 15 abilities,

1) initial bow HA procced Recuperative Treatise, Crystal Weapon, Heavy Attack (Bow), Fiery Weapon (glyph), Sundered (from HA) and Burning (from glyph), then
2) then Crushing Shock (x3) and it triggered Burning and Winterborn
3) LA from front bar triggered Poisoned Weapon, Poisoned (from poison glyph), Light Attack (Lightning) and second Crystal Weapon
4) then Crushing Shock (x3) and it triggered Burning and Concussion
5) and final Light Attack (Lightning)

Every LA is 1.2s apart from each other -> OK
Every Crushing Shock ~1.1s apart of each other -> OK
HA is 0.5s apart from first LA -> travel time, also not sus

While I can understand frustration from this combat system, it was not always like this and stacking big amount of damage in short time window was much harder 10 or 20 patches ago, but everyone was less tough as well. While it is frustrating, don't spread misinformation about "cheaters" and cancelled abilities, cancelled damage and so on. At least this example is absolutely fine to me.

Theignson wrote: »

Here is a ridiculous build . See the >40K damage in 1.4 seconds below from a stealthed player in back of a zerg.

All that is required is Recuperative treatise (Arcanist herald of tome) Crystal weapon (Sorc Dark magic) on a NB with Winterborn. I don't know the other sets but possibly jerrals.

This is a hugely amped up version of the old Winterborn gank build

Use one attack: stealth heavy attack bow cancelled by Crushing Shock.

I survived only because I immediately blocked after the first GCD and my concentrated barrier kicked in.

This is NOT the player's name. My faction had about 15 players vs the 60 on the other faction. This attack came from stealth from somewhere in the huge zerg .

96.071s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Recuperative Treatise for 1958.
[96.074s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crystal Weapon for 3298.
[96.079s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Heavy Attack (Bow) for 3206.
[96.082s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Fiery Weapon for 2859.
[96.084s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Sundered for 1428.
[96.090s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 1323.
[96.360s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1323.
[96.362s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned Weapon for 2201.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crushing Shock for 2459.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1359.
[96.368s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Burning for 710.
[96.372s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned for 1433.
[96.438s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Winterborn for 2071.
[96.571s(redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crystal Weapon for 2839.
[96.575s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Light Attack (Lightning) for 3338.
[97.420s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 0 (Absorbed: 1543).
[97.423s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 705.
[97.424s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 707.
97.427s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 533 (Absorbed: 957).
[97.431s] (redacted (redacted stealthed zergling) Player hits your block with Concussion for 435.
[97.748s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Light Attack (Lightning) for 538.

I hear a lot of newer players claim "he cheated, he hit me with (3-5) abilities at once". This is how its done, with cancelling you can make all your attacks hit at once. Here Fifteen damaging abilities hit at once (in .5 seconds). Note the second light attack that procced the second crystal weapon hit in the first GCD (but its cancelled ability hit in the second GCD). I found that interesting

This makes a mockery of PvP in my opinion, especially when outnumbered and playing solo

Gabriel_H · January 7

Theignson wrote: »

I hear a lot of newer players claim "he cheated, he hit me with (3-5) abilities at once". This is how its done, with cancelling you can make all your attacks hit at once. Here Fifteen damaging abilities hit at once (in .5 seconds). Note the second light attack that procced the second crystal weapon hit in the first GCD (but its cancelled ability hit in the second GCD). I found that interesting

I've tidied up your log somewhat. The logging in game can be a bit meh, and sometimes the microsecond delays make things appear out of order. I've also rounded the timestamps to ignore those same microsecond delays. That gives us this:

Green are weapon attacks. Blue are skills. Pink is procs. Purple is secondary procs.

Attack 1 is a weapon attack. No problem here.
Attack 6 is a pulse on a pre-cast skll. No problem here
Attack 7 - 9 all being the same skill cast. No problem here. It's at 0.300s - which is fine as GCD from Attack 1 was already up as it was a heavy.
Attack 14 - 15 is a weapon attack. Big problem here. It's only 0.200s after the skill cast.

Cancelling stops the weapon animation and allows an immediate skill cast. It does not allow a skill cast then an immediate weapon attack. Attack 14 should not have come this early. It would have to be at least at 1.300s.

Attack 16 - 18 all being the same skill cast. No problem here
Attack 21 is a weapon attack. This comes 1.000s after the weapon attack at 14 which is right, but again it comes only 0.150s after the skill cast. That's a problem.

Now this could be the result of de-sync or it could be the result of something else.

Gabriel_H · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

Light Attack (Lightning) - ~0.5s after bow HA probably because of travel time. Not a surprise.

It's only 0.200s after a skill cast - that's a big surprise. Animation cancelling only works one way.

Vaqual · January 7

It isn't logging time of activation, but the moment the hit is registered. The travel time of the projectile depends on the distance.

imPDA · January 7

Lightning Staff LA has travel time, so if you go normal sequence LA -> Skill -> LA -> Skill, you will see in CMX that skill lands before LA, because skill is almost instant and LA has long travel time.

LA first, then Crushing Shok -> Crushing Shock applied 0.18s b4 LA landed

It is consistent

Bow backbar HA + bar swap + Staff LA is also OK, just tested. 0,5s apart from each other. Bow HA has even lower travel speed, so at distance it makes them look like they are out of GCD, but they actually were fired exactly at GCD windows and landed 0.5s apart only because of different speed.

xylena · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

While it is frustrating, don't spread misinformation about "cheaters" and cancelled abilities, cancelled damage and so on. At least this example is absolutely fine to me.

OP clearly stated it's NOT cheating, but acknowledged seeing 15 "abilities" in 1.5 seconds can look like cheating to uninformed players. The wording was awkward but it's not misinformation, it's a decent breakdown of what's actually happening during an instant kill combo.

The ganker is abusing the travel time on the stealth bow heavy to land their ani cancelled HA-LA-LA at the 0-0.5-1.5 sec marks instead of the 0-1-2 sec marks they pressed the buttons for.

GeneralGrundmann · January 7

Some awesome posts, thanks!

ssewallb14_ESO · January 7

The other set is probably Draugrkin, as it scales up in burst potential with number of things that hit at the same time. I'm really surprised flat damage done sets haven't received the spreadsheet treatment yet.

Sluggy · January 7

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

The other set is probably Draugrkin, as it scales up in burst potential with number of things that hit at the same time. I'm really surprised flat damage done sets haven't received the spreadsheet treatment yet.

That's what I was thinking. This setup is very similar to the status-effect DK build I ran a couple years ago. Basically, stack as many damage sources that can all proc simultaneously regardless of how little damage it looks like on paper. Combine it with a strong heavy attack at startup and most people are down to 25% hp by the time their client even registers that they are under attack.

EDIT: What made it even worse was that most status effects are direct damage so using this with corrosive would just melt some people. Now that we can do that on a high crit chance NB that is coming out of invisibility.... yowsa.

Gabriel_H · January 7

Vaqual wrote: »

It isn't logging time of activation, but the moment the hit is registered. The travel time of the projectile depends on the distance.

That would apply to the crushing shock too. As I said in my original post, it could be de-sync or it could be something else.

Gabriel_H · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

Lightning Staff LA has travel time, so if you go normal sequence LA -> Skill -> LA -> Skill, you will see in CMX that skill lands before LA, because skill is almost instant and LA has long travel time.

LA first, then Crushing Shok -> Crushing Shock applied 0.18s b4 LA landed

It is consistent

Bow backbar HA + bar swap + Staff LA is also OK, just tested. 0,5s apart from each other. Bow HA has even lower travel speed, so at distance it makes them look like they are out of GCD, but they actually were fired exactly at GCD windows and landed 0.5s apart only because of different speed.

That would indicate a bug in Crushing Shock, which should be subject to the same travel time.

imPDA · January 7

Gabriel_H wrote: »

That would indicate a bug in Crushing Shock, which should be subject to the same travel time.

Why? It is skill without travel time, it is the same instant distant damage as lightning HA, templar Radiant Destruction, etc. It has no projectile, in other words, and it always was like that, never was a problem.

But many other skills have travel time. They actually can be even more complex: they can have pre-travel time. Pre-travel time is a short delay which can't be changed and even if you are very close to the target, travel time will not be 0. It was a topic to discuss when NB arrow was reworked. And if you are far away, it will have travel time which is distance / travel speed, and each skill with projectile has its own travel speed.

Crushing Shock has no projectiles by design, so while LA projectile travel, Crushing Shock lands.

Gabriel_H · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

Why? It is skill without travel time, it is the same instant distant damage as lightning HA

It isn't instant. There is an in-built delay of 400ms

imPDA · January 7

Gabriel_H wrote: »

It isn't instant. There is an in-built delay of 400ms

I meant, instant after cast animation ended, it does not depend on distance. You casted a skill, animation ended, target received damage no matter what distance between you and target. But yes, it is not fully instant, for sure.

It probably even has travel speed, but it is very high, I never tested for it. Anyway, it is much faster than LA, that is why it reaches the target faster even if casted after the LA. The main point is it works like that by design, not because it is bugged.

Gabriel_H · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

It probably even has travel speed, but it is very high, I never tested for it. Anyway, it is much faster than LA, that is why it reaches the target faster even if casted after the LA. The main point is it works like that by design, not because it is bugged.

It would suggest the travel time of a Lightning LA is at best/worst 35m is 600ms - being the 400ms for the instant delay on skill plus the time differential on hit. That sounds more like a bug than by design, at least to me.

It's around a speed of 130 miles per hour.

BradTheNord · January 7

This make me smile and I condone every bit of It. I see the horror that is now Xbox NA GH everyone on DC running around with 50k heal bots… as a wise man once noted “you get what you *** deserve” :’)

Vulkunne · January 7

I've had to deal with this sort of thing sometimes and its one reason I don't melee around as much anymore.

The game just doesn't even really try to sort out what happened, not that I really need to know all details or expect tech data, but like some of these cats hit so fast it looks and feels like one instant hit: generally with incap and merciless mixed in there somewhere. So many 5k, 6ks or more within what seems to me like no more than a second.

I'm not saying it's a bug because I can't prove it either way but dang that is really unfair how often it happens. Instead of reaching for other things sometimes I wish the devs would give us a better combat log and more data so we can tell what happened for one, to improve our game but for two, to report and curb some of this insane damage being dished out.

Theignson · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

Recuperative Treatise is Arcanist > Herald of the Tome skill, it is casted beforehand and it proc on damage from class abilities, automatically, so it is out of GCD.

Crystal Weapon is the same, Sorcerer > Dark Magic, but it proc on LA/HA, so it is out of GCD too.

Heavy Attack (Bow) - there is GCD between LA/HA.

Fiery Weapon - glyph from bow, obviously. Glyphs as out of GCD, it has separate CD.

Sundered, Burning - status effects, out of GCD.

Crushing Shock x3 x2 - two casts, 1 second of GCD between them. Each Crushing Shock generates 3 damages, because it hits with 3 different damages. (696 Flame Damage 696 Frost Damage, and 696 Shock Damage)

Poisoned Weapon - poison glyph from lightning staff, procced when hit by crushing shock from the front bar.

Crystal Weapon again - second charge (one skill has 2 charges, second is also much weaker, and we can see it clearly from log) (The first hit deals 2091 Physical Damage and the second deals 836 Physical Damage)

Light Attack (Lightning) - ~0.5s after bow HA probably because of travel time. Not a surprise.

Winterborn - proc set, out of GCD, it has its own CD.

Burning, Concussion - status effects, out of GCD.

So, what is the problem? They charged HA from bow from backbar with Crystal Weapon and Recuperative Treatise casted in advance, then switched to front bar and pressed Crushing Shock twice with LA in between. It is not 15 abilities,

1) initial bow HA procced Recuperative Treatise, Crystal Weapon, Heavy Attack (Bow), Fiery Weapon (glyph), Sundered (from HA) and Burning (from glyph), then
2) then Crushing Shock (x3) and it triggered Burning and Winterborn
3) LA from front bar triggered Poisoned Weapon, Poisoned (from poison glyph), Light Attack (Lightning) and second Crystal Weapon
4) then Crushing Shock (x3) and it triggered Burning and Concussion
5) and final Light Attack (Lightning)

Every LA is 1.2s apart from each other -> OK
Every Crushing Shock ~1.1s apart of each other -> OK
HA is 0.5s apart from first LA -> travel time, also not sus

While I can understand frustration from this combat system, it was not always like this and stacking big amount of damage in short time window was much harder 10 or 20 patches ago, but everyone was less tough as well. While it is frustrating, don't spread misinformation about "cheaters" and cancelled abilities, cancelled damage and so on. At least this example is absolutely fine to me.

Theignson wrote: »

Here is a ridiculous build . See the >40K damage in 1.4 seconds below from a stealthed player in back of a zerg.

All that is required is Recuperative treatise (Arcanist herald of tome) Crystal weapon (Sorc Dark magic) on a NB with Winterborn. I don't know the other sets but possibly jerrals.

This is a hugely amped up version of the old Winterborn gank build

Use one attack: stealth heavy attack bow cancelled by Crushing Shock.

I survived only because I immediately blocked after the first GCD and my concentrated barrier kicked in.

This is NOT the player's name. My faction had about 15 players vs the 60 on the other faction. This attack came from stealth from somewhere in the huge zerg .

96.071s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Recuperative Treatise for 1958.
[96.074s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crystal Weapon for 3298.
[96.079s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Heavy Attack (Bow) for 3206.
[96.082s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Fiery Weapon for 2859.
[96.084s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Sundered for 1428.
[96.090s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 1323.
[96.360s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1323.
[96.362s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned Weapon for 2201.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crushing Shock for 2459.
[96.365s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Crushing Shock for 1359.
[96.368s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Burning for 710.
[96.372s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Poisoned for 1433.
[96.438s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits you with Winterborn for 2071.
[96.571s(redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Crystal Weapon for 2839.
[96.575s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Light Attack (Lightning) for 3338.
[97.420s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 0 (Absorbed: 1543).
[97.423s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 705.
[97.424s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Crushing Shock for 707.
97.427s] (redacted stealthed zergling) critically hits you with Burning for 533 (Absorbed: 957).
[97.431s] (redacted (redacted stealthed zergling) Player hits your block with Concussion for 435.
[97.748s] (redacted stealthed zergling) hits your block with Light Attack (Lightning) for 538.

I hear a lot of newer players claim "he cheated, he hit me with (3-5) abilities at once". This is how its done, with cancelling you can make all your attacks hit at once. Here Fifteen damaging abilities hit at once (in .5 seconds). Note the second light attack that procced the second crystal weapon hit in the first GCD (but its cancelled ability hit in the second GCD). I found that interesting

This makes a mockery of PvP in my opinion, especially when outnumbered and playing solo

You misread my post__ I said new players think this is cheating, but I was trying to explain it was not cheating just normal mechanics.

But they are stupid mechanics.

With these setups you will see more and more zerglings sitting in stealth in the back of the zerg, hitting players trying to actually melee or fight. BTW since no one asked I had ~29k physical 31k spell resists and 2600 crit resist when this hit me. So these numbers are after ~45% reduction from resists and 50% reduction from battlespirit

Of course there are players who want one button simple play from stealth , go for it, I encourage more andmore people to use this build and see what pvp is like

SneaK · January 7

MGGA - Make Ganking Great Again

Sorry you almost got bursted while you were 15x’ing.

Ganking has been nerfed to oblivion cause everyone is a burst tank healbot now. Good for “redacted stealth zergling” for putting more effort into his/her playstyle than running the oh so boring meta. We need more players like this, not more “omg my meta bubble almost got bursted”.

imPDA · January 7

Yes, I am sorry for misunderstanding, but you also mentioned "cancelling", but this recap is possible without any cancelling. There is no cancelling at all I would say: you can skip some stupid animations, but it will not change nor number of skills casted per second, nor their order, nor make it fire faster, nor will allow to cast multiple skills with GCD at the same GCD windows. The only way to make them fire at a rapid succession is to capture internet packets from the game and then send them all at one. You can find in on YT and ZOs did nothing to these cheats. These cheaters are rare tho, it is either not very profitable to cheat, or they are banned pretty fast.

BTW gankers were worse old days, there was a lot of bow gankers and Lethal Arrow was pain in the ass, sometimes you could do nothing if you ride a horse and you died with almost 99% chance. Nowadays these bow gankers are simply annoying, but some of them who gank in melee with huge prebuff and BfB are the real problem.

Theignson · January 7

SneaK wrote: »

MGGA - Make Ganking Great Again

Sorry you almost got bursted while you were 15x’ing.

Ganking has been nerfed to oblivion cause everyone is a burst tank healbot now. Good for “redacted stealth zergling” for putting more effort into his/her playstyle than running the oh so boring meta. We need more players like this, not more “omg my meta bubble almost got bursted”.

Sorry, you got the numbers wrong. There were 60+ ad and 15 EP and i was on the EP side. In fact there were about 10 ad right around me and no other EP, I think.

So "redacted stealth zergling" was hidden somewhere in a mass of people.

Also I was trying to run 37k health, looks like big mistake, lol.

In the old days ganking was much more high risk , high reward since it was melee and you had to be really squishy to get the huge numbers. This huge damage ranged gank from stealth , while hiding in the zerg, is a completely different matter. But if thats how you like to play, you go right ahead!

Theignson · January 7

imPDA wrote: »

Yes, I am sorry for misunderstanding, but you also mentioned "cancelling", but this recap is possible without any cancelling. There is no cancelling at all I would say: you can skip some stupid animations, but it will not change nor number of skills casted per second, nor their order, nor make it fire faster, nor will allow to cast multiple skills with GCD at the same GCD windows. The only way to make them fire at a rapid succession is to capture internet packets from the game and then send them all at one. You can find in on YT and ZOs did nothing to these cheats. These cheaters are rare tho, it is either not very profitable to cheat, or they are banned pretty fast.

BTW gankers were worse old days, there was a lot of bow gankers and Lethal Arrow was pain in the ass, sometimes you could do nothing if you ride a horse and you died with almost 99% chance. Nowadays these bow gankers are simply annoying, but some of them who gank in melee with huge prebuff and BfB are the real problem.

Well when I used to test this on the trial dummies, let's say you light attack, you then hit your ability 0.4 seconds later (as I recall) and the two will hit at the same time. That's what I meant by cancelling, maybe calling it weaving is more correct, but if you don't time it right they won't hit at the same time so your dps drops.

But I agree with you about ganking, there have been issues over time that ZOS then nerfed. For example you can't gank with a staff without coming out of stealth, but you can still do it with a bow. Also I seem to recall they changed lethal arrow etc.

In the old days ganking was much more high risk , high reward since it was melee and you had to be really squishy to get the huge numbers. This huge damage ranged gank from stealth , while hiding in the zerg, is a completely different matter. I used to gank from stealth and never really liked the playsytyle

Some players , and I agree, disagree in principle with ranged low risk high damage gank from stealth, since there is no to little counterplay (old DK wings used to be great for this). I wonder what @React or @xylena wouold say, for example.

But PvPers never agree on these matters lol

Theignson · January 7

Sluggy wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

The other set is probably Draugrkin, as it scales up in burst potential with number of things that hit at the same time. I'm really surprised flat damage done sets haven't received the spreadsheet treatment yet.

That's what I was thinking. This setup is very similar to the status-effect DK build I ran a couple years ago. Basically, stack as many damage sources that can all proc simultaneously regardless of how little damage it looks like on paper. Combine it with a strong heavy attack at startup and most people are down to 25% hp by the time their client even registers that they are under attack.

EDIT: What made it even worse was that most status effects are direct damage so using this with corrosive would just melt some people. Now that we can do that on a high crit chance NB that is coming out of invisibility.... yowsa.

Yes Draukrkin might work, I was wondering about Shattered fate. Likely also they run simmering frenzy since there is no risk of low health in the back of a zerg. It might even be an oakensoul build

Sluggy · January 7

Theignson wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

The other set is probably Draugrkin, as it scales up in burst potential with number of things that hit at the same time. I'm really surprised flat damage done sets haven't received the spreadsheet treatment yet.

That's what I was thinking. This setup is very similar to the status-effect DK build I ran a couple years ago. Basically, stack as many damage sources that can all proc simultaneously regardless of how little damage it looks like on paper. Combine it with a strong heavy attack at startup and most people are down to 25% hp by the time their client even registers that they are under attack.

EDIT: What made it even worse was that most status effects are direct damage so using this with corrosive would just melt some people. Now that we can do that on a high crit chance NB that is coming out of invisibility.... yowsa.

Yes Draukrkin might work, I was wondering about Shattered fate. Likely also they run simmering frenzy since there is no risk of low health in the back of a zerg. It might even be an oakensoul build

My build was an Oaken Soul build. Quite capable of fighting out numbered out in the open too. But I don't know if that would work now. It dropped off hard when maxmag sorcs, shield stacking, and especially scribing came in. Haven't tried it since then so who knows now with subclassing. I ended up going with the obvious choice of Critty Kitty Nightwarplar.

Granted, this was described as a person hidden in the mass. In the end, there's not much you can do about that. one random guy that's packing serious heat without any worry for safety is just going to happen from time-to-time and you kinda have to accept that now and then.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 7

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

I hear a lot of newer players claim "he cheated, he hit me with (3-5) abilities at once". This is how its done, with cancelling you can make all your attacks hit at once. Here Fifteen damaging abilities hit at once (in .5 seconds). Note the second light attack that procced the second crystal weapon hit in the first GCD (but its cancelled ability hit in the second GCD). I found that interesting

I've tidied up your log somewhat. The logging in game can be a bit meh, and sometimes the microsecond delays make things appear out of order. I've also rounded the timestamps to ignore those same microsecond delays. That gives us this:

Green are weapon attacks. Blue are skills. Pink is procs. Purple is secondary procs.

Attack 1 is a weapon attack. No problem here.
Attack 6 is a pulse on a pre-cast skll. No problem here
Attack 7 - 9 all being the same skill cast. No problem here. It's at 0.300s - which is fine as GCD from Attack 1 was already up as it was a heavy.
Attack 14 - 15 is a weapon attack. Big problem here. It's only 0.200s after the skill cast.

Cancelling stops the weapon animation and allows an immediate skill cast. It does not allow a skill cast then an immediate weapon attack. Attack 14 should not have come this early. It would have to be at least at 1.300s.

Attack 16 - 18 all being the same skill cast. No problem here
Attack 21 is a weapon attack. This comes 1.000s after the weapon attack at 14 which is right, but again it comes only 0.150s after the skill cast. That's a problem.

Now this could be the result of de-sync or it could be the result of something else.

There's nothing suspicious about attack 14. 14 was a lightning staff light attack, which travels much faster than a bow heavy attack. The log is the time the projectiles landed, not the time they were sent out. They are very fast.

Resto light attacks are instant travel time; lightning staff are just behind that. It's literally lightning - it travels fast.

kevkj · January 7

Shots 1-5: Clearly missed.
Shots 6-15: Missed due to recoil (bad spray control).
Shots 16-21: Very close, but recoil and inaccuracy make these reasonable misses.
Shot 22: Likely didn't actually fire because Theignson was already dead.

React · January 8

Theignson wrote: »

Some players , and I agree, disagree in principle with ranged low risk high damage gank from stealth, since there is no to little counterplay (old DK wings used to be great for this). I wonder what @React or @xylena wouold say, for example.

Ranged ganking is definitely overtuned these days. Too many things can be stacked into 1-2 GCDS from a person who 28+ meters away in stealth, who can immediately enter stealth again before youre able to even light attack them.

I agree with the concept that ganking at some points in the past was a bit better balanced when it was melee oriented, and when to achieve "one shot" damage you needed to use titanborn + sated fury and sit on very low hp. High risk high reward, etc.

To be honest though, I don't even know what they could do at this point to fix it. Subclasing gave everyone access to cloak and the best possible ranged damage options, and we've got multiple overtuned proc sets that synergize very will with the playstyle. Even nerfing the procs wouldn't be enough, youd still have people chucking 30k bursts at you from stealth 28+ meters away. Think the only answer would be a fundamental change to how cloak and invisibility work in pvp, but that isn't a conversation the community would ever be willing to have.

Turtle_Bot · January 8

Sub-classing is just the latest buff to this playstyle that did not need it, especially post U35. Crystal weapon used to be filled by crushing weapon (that also provided breach), Snipe was used to desync targets to prevent them defending themselves and there's always been some BiS high burst damage proc set available to time with the combo (often multiple sets that could also be stacked with each other).

Ever since U35 when NB got massively buffed, this ranged ganking build (or a similar build using X BiS proc set of the day) has plagued Cyrodiil and been a huge factor in why zergs/PuGs now sit at 35-40k health + capped resistances at minimum.

I still remember the U38-40 patches right before Sorc got it's mega buff to ward, where everyone and their mothers were on the same ranged gank blade build (even lots of the 1vX sweats were abusing this build due to how broken it was) using crushing shock, draugrkin, asylum destro, etc. that would 100-0 even the tankiest of generic builds if they weren't blocking the exact 1-2 GCDs that these ganks from stealth landed, and if there was more than 1 ganker using this build, nothing survived it, not even the 50-60k health heal-bot zerg stalling tanks could survive multiples of those builds and this was long before sub-classings massive boost to crit damage done.

Heck, there were multiple threads made, dozens of pages long, full of complaints about this exact playstyle at the time due to how overpowered it was and that there was nothing else in the game that could compete with it (even post ward buff, sorc was only really on par with these builds in power level and only because ward was so strong it negated most of the damage of these builds allowing the sorc a chance to fight back, not because anything else sorc had was on par with these gank builds).

While such builds are definitely not cheating, such builds/playstyles are another case where ZOS does need to reign in this particular playstyles risk/reward ratio massively from where it currently sits to a level closer to the old days where there was real risk to running this kind of build that had such a massive payoff (little to no healing, must be on deaths door to get the damage required, mostly melee limited options, etc. to have the ability to essentially 1 shot a target).

There's a lot ZOS can do to fix it, but it won't be popular amongst the extremely vocal minority that love this kind of playstyle and how easy and overpowered it has been made over the years and as @React said, the conversation surrounding invis is a conversation this PvP community definitely is not ready to have (and likely will never be ready to have, ever) as evidenced by the conversations surrounding invis/NB over the past 2-3 years.

Also, @Theignson on the topic of old DK wings, old Ball of Lightning used to be very similar as a counter for this low risk, high reward playstyle as well, since a well timed BoL completely absorbed every single attack and proc projectile made by the gank, but like old wings, this counter was also made to no longer be effective against this playstyle.

BoL used to absorb all projectiles within it's 2 second window (including procs), now it absorbs 1 projectile per second instead, making it useless against these builds because there's too many projectiles to absorb, 90% of the damage still hits anyway).

The only somewhat effective counters to these builds that I have found has been sword and shield ultimate, spell wall morph (reflects it all back at the ganker, often killing them with their own gank lol) or wardens crystaline slab (absorbs 90% of the (pre-mitigation) damage while firing a stun back at the ganker often disrupting their combo).
The issues with these counters are that:
- spell wall is an ultimate (the ganks are not ultimates and as such have a significantly shorter cooldown than spell wall)
- slab is expensive to cast, doesn't help much against anything else, especially the charm into shulks into X proc meta builds, and the skill line slab is on doesn't really buff damage like lines such as storm calling, aedric spear, animal companions, or assassination, so it's purely a defensive line and as such has to compete with the objectively/generically stronger restoring light line (also has to compete with the current BiS line, animal companions, if the base class is not warden).

xylena · January 8

Theignson wrote: »

Some players , and I agree, disagree in principle with ranged low risk high damage gank from stealth, since there is no to little counterplay (old DK wings used to be great for this). I wonder what @React or @xylena wouold say, for example.

But PvPers never agree on these matters lol

I agree with React and can't really add much. I've long been adamant that instakills are bad for game health, that "low risk high reward" tactics are bad for game health (especially when performed from range), and that the GH build system can not be salvaged.

Theignson · January 9

Update:
As predicted: tonight I ran into a group of three NB ALL wearing this build

This time I did not survive despite heroic efforts