React wrote: »

I don't think this is punishing enough to make a difference. These groups are healing many times in excess of the damage theyr'e taking, so a 33% reduction probably won't phase them. If it is too punishing, they'll stack 7 HOTS and shift their efforts to shields and burst burst heals, maybe with a few ground HOTs mixed in. At least when it was being proposed at 5, that was a number thst would actually be difficult to avoid having.

As for the stacking mechanics, please explore this further. Times have changed, and in this post youre referencing something from 5+ years ago. This isn't the same game or community thet it was 5+ years ago. Healing is exponentially stronger than it was back then, and every other aspect of survivability has been power crept as well.

Making it so same morph HOTS don't stack would instantly solve the hot issue.

Hope to see shields addressed in a future patch!

Shielding is 100% as much if not more of an issue as healing. Would also like to see it adjusted in a similar way.

IncultaWolf wrote: »

React wrote: »

I don't think this is punishing enough to make a difference. These groups are healing many times in excess of the damage theyr'e taking, so a 33% reduction probably won't phase them. If it is too punishing, they'll stack 7 HOTS and shift their efforts to shields and burst burst heals, maybe with a few ground HOTs mixed in. At least when it was being proposed at 5, that was a number thst would actually be difficult to avoid having.

As for the stacking mechanics, please explore this further. Times have changed, and in this post youre referencing something from 5+ years ago. This isn't the same game or community thet it was 5+ years ago. Healing is exponentially stronger than it was back then, and every other aspect of survivability has been power crept as well.

Making it so same morph HOTS don't stack would instantly solve the hot issue.

Hope to see shields addressed in a future patch!

Shielding is 100% as much if not more of an issue as healing. Would also like to see it adjusted in a similar way.

Meanwhile the only option on the table is nerfing hots and burst healing while shielding remains untouched. The devs are as out of touch as the players with how the game should be balanced.

Artisian0001 wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

Artisian0001 wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

[snip]

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This question could not be easier. It has been asked 4 times now. When the person who runs the shield contingency presses the shield contingency skill, what is the numerical value that each person hit with shield contingency receives in shielding. I am talking about in one instance, they are just standing still with 5 other people around them. What is the value each person will receive on average?

Wasn't too hard wasn't it. For a build specifically made for this, around 5-6k, +/- some % depending on buffs and debuffs. Small groups are around 5k'ish since they can't afford losing too much group utility to invest into shields. For 10-12 man groups it's a bit higher since they have more sets / skill lines to spare, so you get like an extra 10-15% buff and more consistent uptimes on stuff like vitality.
[edited to remove quote]

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

If I could show you that the value is actually twice what you're saying it is, would you then agree that it should be nerfed?

Please do. I'm very much interested in how to achieve a 12k average hit.

Fyi here's a picture from a few days ago:



Max refers to the highest value registered across the whole 2h raid, when all buffs were up and no debuffs were on the player.

That means, major/minor vitality; active.
Minor/major defile: inactive

Max: 7200
Without major vitality: (overall 10-15% uptime across raid so inconsistent ): 6400.
Without minor vitality: (overall 50% uptime across raid so we take the average between with or without ): 6400x0.94 = ~6000.

So it averages out at 6200.

Minor defile: Up almost non stop due to plaguebreak.
6200x0.94 = ~5800-5850.

Major defile: Up rather consistently both vs groups and vs zergs due to skills like shifting standard ( groups ) and blastbones ( zerg groups ). but to keep it fair let's put it at 50% value.

5800 *0.88 for 12% major defile penalty is 5100.

Let's take the average between with or without to account for a 50% uptime -> 5100+5800/2 -> 5450 average shield applied.

So the actual average in a fight: 5400.

That is with 55k HP, bastion CP, curative runeforms passive, full divines / infused gear with max HP, lord mundus and food that only gives 6.6k health, so other stats are awful and sustain is pretty horrible. Plus you're useless in a negate, and your overall stats are so low that HoTs and burst heals are considerably lower compared to healers.

No sets that actually buff shields ( nothing like blind path induction or stuff like this - i think those sets are awful and purely log bait ).

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

If I could show you that the value is actually twice what you're saying it is, would you then agree that it should be nerfed?

Please do. I'm very much interested in how to achieve a 12k average hit.

Fyi here's a picture from a few days ago:



Max refers to the highest value registered across the whole 2h raid, when all buffs were up and no debuffs were on the player.

That means, major/minor vitality; active.
Minor/major defile: inactive

Max: 7200
Without major vitality: (overall 10-15% uptime across raid so inconsistent ): 6400.
Without minor vitality: (overall 50% uptime across raid so we take the average between with or without ): 6400x0.94 = ~6000.

So it averages out at 6200.

Minor defile: Up almost non stop due to plaguebreak.
6200x0.94 = ~5800-5850.

Major defile: Up rather consistently both vs groups and vs zergs due to skills like shifting standard ( groups ) and blastbones ( zerg groups ). but to keep it fair let's put it at 50% value.

5800 *0.88 for 12% major defile penalty is 5100.

Let's take the average between with or without to account for a 50% uptime -> 5100+5800/2 -> 5450 average shield applied.

So the actual average in a fight: 5400.

I'll post evidence, but I want you to explicitly say that you will agree that it should be nerfed first. I get a feeling when I post the evidence you will continue to hold your position.

You should say, "If contingency can do between 10-12k in shields per person then shield should be nerfed."

If proof will be going on PTS and slotting a Goliath ult for 100k max HP, I definitely won't agree.

If it's a setup that actually makes sense in practice and not some meme min max why wouldn't I agree.

I'm not really difficult to argue with if your reasoning is sound just so you know.

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

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You think Critical Riposte and Xoryn are a “ball group shielding” build. You have no clue what you’re talking about. The entire point of the build is to stack health and make the group immortal. All of your build suggestions just make the build worse. You have 12 people in the group. You don’t need to stack every single group utility on one person and then pretend it’s a bad build if it can’t do that.

If we took your suggestion, the build would just provide utility that someone else already has, and it would reduce the shielding it provides by 40%.
[edited to remove quote]

Ideally, hot stacking should be tied to being grouped with other players or not (cuz this is the only situation in PvP where stacking hots becomes problematic to a game breaking levels - in group PvP environment).

I guess the proposed solution in this pool is still better than nothing. I also think that if possible, it should "detect" types of hots that are sourced from differnet skill and only make other hots weaker (not casted by you on yourself).

For instance, if you cast vigor on yourself - it will always be the same without any penalty. The reduction will only affect hots cased by other players on you. So lets say you heal yourself, and then 3 other players will heal you. At some point the healing your recive from others (if there will be too many) will become weaker.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You have 12 people in the group.

I play as 6-8. I also think 12-man runs are bad. I either come across unchallenging fights that are boring since there's not enough pressure due to how strong the group is from sheer numbers, or fights where I actually end up wiping and then I feel even worse for wiping as a 12-man, which should almost never happen vs uncoordinated groups if people play well.

Then there's the matter of fighting enemy groups. Even if I win the fight, I have no satisfaction killing an enemy group when they are less than us, and I don't view it as a win, so If I outnumber the enemies I usually just don't engage. And there's very little 12-man groups on EU. Personally I wouldn't have a problem if max group size would be reduced to 8. I think it would even be a very healthy change for the game, since it's frustrating as solo/zerg to feel like there's not much you can do vs a 12-man, and it's also annoying as a 6-8 man to be zerged by a 12-man ballgroup.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You think Critical Riposte and Xoryn are a “ball group shielding” build. You have no clue what you’re talking about.

I'll actually take a step back try to explain stuff in a polite, detailed and constructive way, in the genuine hope that you understand things better and can gain a different perspective.

There's no such thing as a ball group shielding build when i have limited set and skill lines slots. I need to fit everything that's mandatory in the little space I have, in a way that it makes at least a decent amount of sense for each individual build.

Arkasis is generally an awful set in terms of how much group value it provides and there's plenty of better options. Lucent is a good piece on the shielder. My shielder doesn't have perfect lucent tho, and the shield is the person using the DK Standard and Undaunted damage orb to help with damage, so it makes more sense to use a set that procs when you take damage. Whether I have a 2nd set that gives Max HP or Max Mag makes 0 difference since I need to bring the Max Mag over the stam value in order for the heal orbs return mag, so Xoryn is as good as any other set.

Even if in 12-man you would have enough space for something like that, you still have less HP because you need movement speed to keep up with the group, so no healthy / boundless vitality, you can't slot 1h&shield since you need some sort of ranged healing to deal with negates, and you're locked out of options other than resto ( I actually like warden stamina mushrooms on this build as 3rd skill line so that you can heal inside a negate even as a support / shielder / healer, since you go in the frontline ). You kinda have to go melee to give shields in critical moments, and to acutually be able to keep shields up, you want to have more magicka than stamina. Otherwise healing orbs will restore stamina and you won't have enough mag to sustain the shields. This is also more minus max HP.

If you really want to min-max really bad and have 1 guy entirely devoted to shields, you can probably end up around the 8k, maybe 9k mark and still have a build that has all the checkmarks, including all the skill lines you have, and try to make minimal changes.

But if you're playing 12 what's even the point? You definitely can't afford to devote 2 people to just shields and 0 group utility outside of that, cuz then you definitely lack all the skill lines you want.

-- TARGET CAP --

-- MAX STATS --

-- SKILL LINES --

-- SETS --

-- LOGS --

-- CONCLUSIONS --
-- IMPLICATIONS --

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You have 12 people in the group.

I play as 6-8. I also think 12-man runs are bad. I either come across unchallenging fights that are boring since there's not enough pressure due to how strong the group is from sheer numbers, or fights where I actually end up wiping and then I feel even worse for wiping as a 12-man, which should almost never happen vs uncoordinated groups if people play well.

Then there's the matter of fighting enemy groups. Even if I win the fight, I have no satisfaction killing an enemy group when they are less than us, and I don't view it as a win, so If I outnumber the enemies I usually just don't engage. And there's very little 12-man groups on EU. Personally I wouldn't have a problem if max group size would be reduced to 8. I think it would even be a very healthy change for the game, since it's frustrating as solo/zerg to feel like there's not much you can do vs a 12-man, and it's also annoying as a 6-8 man to be zerged by a 12-man ballgroup.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You think Critical Riposte and Xoryn are a “ball group shielding” build. You have no clue what you’re talking about.

I'll actually take a step back try to explain stuff in a polite, detailed and constructive way, in the genuine hope that you understand things better and can gain a different perspective.

There's no such thing as a ball group shielding build when i have limited set and skill lines slots. I need to fit everything that's mandatory in the little space I have, in a way that it makes at least a decent amount of sense for each individual build.

Arkasis is generally an awful set in terms of how much group value it provides and there's plenty of better options. Lucent is a good piece on the shielder. My shielder doesn't have perfect lucent tho, and the shield is the person using the DK Standard and Undaunted damage orb to help with damage, so it makes more sense to use a set that procs when you take damage. Whether I have a 2nd set that gives Max HP or Max Mag makes 0 difference since I need to bring the Max Mag over the stam value in order for the heal orbs return mag, so Xoryn is as good as any other set.

Even if in 12-man you would have enough space for something like that, you still have less HP because you need movement speed to keep up with the group, so no healthy / boundless vitality, you can't slot 1h&shield since you need some sort of ranged healing to deal with negates, and you're locked out of options other than resto ( I actually like warden stamina mushrooms on this build as 3rd skill line so that you can heal inside a negate even as a support / shielder / healer, since you go in the frontline ). You kinda have to go melee to give shields in critical moments, and to acutually be able to keep shields up, you want to have more magicka than stamina. Otherwise healing orbs will restore stamina and you won't have enough mag to sustain the shields. This is also more minus max HP.

If you really want to min-max really bad and have 1 guy entirely devoted to shields, you can probably end up around the 8k, maybe 9k mark and still have a build that has all the checkmarks, including all the skill lines you have, and try to make minimal changes.

But if you're playing 12 what's even the point? You definitely can't afford to devote 2 people to just shields and 0 group utility outside of that, cuz then you definitely lack all the skill lines you want.

-- TARGET CAP --

Then a big issue is that shields ( non-ult ones ) are not gonna hit everyone in the group. With abilities capped as 6 targets you have to rotate around the group and recast it anywhere between 3 to 5-6 times to actually hit the whole group.

On average you'll get 5-6 people from the 1st cast, 8-9 people from the 2nd cast, and either 1 or 2 more people on future casts, depending on how good you are at positioning. So even if we take the amazing best case scenario, which is 3 casts, then you'd have to press contingency + soul burst and literally nothing else non stop. No time to heavy attack / break free / dodge for 100% uptime. Both have 6s duration assuming the shield won't break, so 3x from each is 6 casts for 100% uptime. In an actual fight you have to press your major evasion buff, your vigor ( multiple times - for the same reasoning with capped at 6 targets ), your ult, your burst heal when there's a negate, break free every 7s, dodge when pressured etc. You still want to have your HoTs up as much as you can, which in my case is vigor and cauterize, so when you end up getting hit hard by something unexpected - 2-3 sieges which got lucky timing and hit you at the same time, you're not sitting at 12k HP without any ongoing healing. So at best you'll have 50-55% uptime on YOURSELF. Which is gonna be like 35-40% maybe on the whole group? That's if you're super optimistic. So shields get less consistent the more people you play with from 6 and above. Cuz it's always gonna be roulette. Is the guy that actually needs help the one who got the shield? Yea? Great. No? Well, then you're pretty useless.

-- MAX STATS --

Another issue is low stats. The more you invest in HP the harder it gets to sustain. Blocking a lot is also mandatory so since you want acceptable pools of mag and stam you often are forced to run sugar skulls, in which case your sustain is insanely low. I had tons of complaints from my shielder that in pressure situation the build needs to non-stop heavy attack with resto, otherwise it's impossible to cast things. And the way I run it is built way heavier towards the sustain comfortable side. Getting interrupted by a streak at the end of a heavy attack destroys your sustain really bad for example.

-- SKILL LINES --

Then there's the opportunity cost. How good is the 10% shield from curative runeforms for example? Even with an absurd amount like 10k shield/cast, that's like 900-1000 extra shield. It's not BAD, but isn't it better to go something like storm calling for example? I can streak to help with CC. I can streak enemy groups defensively when they push us. I can actually streak away when I get caught in a bad spot, since I kinda want to pendulate from damage point to the backline of the group to try and keep shields up as much as I can on the whole group. And I can't do that if everyone has the same movement speed as me. If I go in the backline to shield the healers, I'm not gonna reach the DDs in front anymore. Then I also get Lightning Flood so I actually do something when we push, not just look at the group. And I get Power Surge. It's 1 button every 20s and heals insane amounts. Definitely more than the extra value I'd get from 10% shields.

Can also take the Necro skill line for example. How useful is 2.4k HP and some ult generation? I could for example go siphoning from NB instead. Then I get siphoning strikes, and can finally run sugar skulls and sustain without problems since with 55k health pool I dont mind the health cost. I have the Soul Tether as ult. Based on logs from the past months, gibbering shelter, even if it scales with HP, is on-par with a barrier in terms of how much defensive power you get out of it. The issue is I actually have to go in the damage consistently to proc it, and when there's a dangerous scenario I kinda don't want to do that. I still run the gibbering shelter as ult, but for a very specific reason. When there's a pressure scenario my players have the tendency to react at the exact same time. If one casts as barrier, at least it stacks with the gibbering shelter, even tho it feels like a complete waste to drop 2 ults, vs having 2 barriers and one of them being completely wasted. It's also a bit cheaper so it's not bad in zerg fights. It's pretty trash against other groups tho. With stuff like Soul Tether, yea, it wont be as big a number on logs, but then everyone from my group gets 12% more healing, including all active HoTs, burst heals etc.

-- SETS --

In a 12-man i'd probably change sets to something like Perfected Lucent, Perfected Pearlescent, trainee light sash and snow treads. That way you get 2 useful sets that are helpful for the group and get a decent amount of Max HP. I've seen some people run the DK Endless Archive set, or Blind Path Induction, but I think these are horrible choices. Yes you end up with some crazy numbers, but stuff like Pearlescent buffs the healing / damage of the whole group. So even if your HPS goes up, the overall group HPS goes down when you use selfish buffs. It just looks pretty since it's a big number, but it's bait and it hurts the group.

I also hate sets around ults, because I think it makes gameplay swingy rather than consistent. I might get used to having a barrier up and thinking I'm way tankier than I actually am. It's enough for one push to not pay attention that defensive ults are down and suddenly I overcommit in a push and end up wiping vs playing consistent and not ult dependent, and keeping ults as emergency buttons.

In Group vs Group environments, ult based gameplay is very inconsistent. You'll end up having scenarios where:
- They push you once. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You don't have a barrier. You feel squishy and die.

No matter what your group size is, or what's your target content ( zergs or other groups ), you will ALWAYS have to optimize against groups as well, since they are your biggest threat and you come across enemy groups anywhere between 1-2 times to 10-20 times a raid.

-- LOGS --

Shields overly inflate logs, and from a numbers perspective, they appear way stronger than they actually are. Let's take a specific scenario.
I'm sieging a keep. A dude throws a meatbag at my feet. 4 team mates come to help me. 3 of them drop a vigor. the shielder drops 2 shields. Am I in any danger? Not really. I won't die. I'm more than capable of healing myself as well. But if we look on logs for this exact scenario, we'll see 12k shields and 100% overhealing from vigor. In reality, I didn't even need the shields in the first place. The healing from the 3 vigors alone was enough to mitigate the meatbag DPS. So it's literally a useless cast that inflates log numbers.

This exact scenario happens hundreds of times across a raid, due to the nature of shields being "on top". There's a lot of chip damage that would have had close to 0 impact from all the HoTs underneath, but will get credited to the shielder instead. Excessive shields make heals less effective, and are redundant casts. Their main purpose is to prepare for burst, and in a zerg fight the only type of burst you can expect is when solo players happen to line up damage, not by choice, but by mistake. They simply happen to drop ults at the same time for example. Is that something you can anticipate? Definitely not. So it's literally just pure luck whether you happen to drop shields in that exact moment. If that moment passes, your shields don't do anything, really. Your team would have been at 100% HP anyway from all the heals, but on logs you get credited for doing something "helpful" while the rest of the team contributes to overhealing.

-- CONCLUSIONS --

It is possible to end up with a really high number if you want to invest an excessive amount in this exact thing. But with all the issues I mentioned ( negates , not having a burst heal , awful sustain, awful resource pool ), I genuinely don't think it's worth it. I actually believe it will end up hurting the group despite the log numbers. In practice it won't even feel like much of a difference in the majority of fights whether the shielder is there or not, since very often the shields absorb random stuff that would have been healed by HoTs anyway. Much like playing around ults, it will bait the group a lot. A big issue you have with shields is that gameplay is very swingy. In one moment, when the scribing shields are fresh and the Gibbering Shelter just proc'd, you feel super tanky. 2s later you feel insanely squishy and you're gonna have a "wtf" moment, wondering where that burst came from, when in reality it's just people not paying attention due to these survivability swings.

I don't think shields are OP, because I think going full shielder with all skill lines dedicated to it is genuinely log memes. They're ok in zerg fights. But I feel it way more when a healer is missing from my group vs zergs than when the shielder is missing. In GvG scenarios shields are really strong, and it's the primary reason I use them, to the point where I'm tempted to avoid groups if my shielder is not online. When fighting a 10-man as 8 people its impossible to survive a push when one of my players gets hit by 5 proximity detonations, 5 shalks, 5 contingencies, 5 synergies and 3 bow procs at the same time. So I really need that extra 12k eHP.

So, if I think shields are not OP, why don't I play another healer instead?
Primarily for the reason stated above - I think they're invaluable when going against other groups. In zerg fights they're kinda whatever. HoTs do a way better job at keeping the group alive there. If I just use HoTs and move around in a mid pressure scenario, it's generally fine. If HoTs drop and I just shield and burst heal, it feels pretty rough and dangerous.

In a 12-man I'd probably shift the shielder a bit more towards a healer, and focus specifically on the group vs group aspect with the shield skills.

Also playing a shielder is really fun as it's one of the more challenging builds to play. In zerg fights its slightly boring, as you don't care too much about the shield itself, and you're mostly a buff dispenser. You mostly cast them to keep the related buffs up, and the shield aspect of it is more of a "whatever, it doesn't hurt" kind of scenario. In group vs group it gets pretty tricky. You want to have a really good awarness of what the enemy is doing, and pay close attention to when they cast deep fisure, when they cast proximity detonation etc., since they have a short 6s duration, you want to drop them before the damage, but not too early either since you don't want stuff like destro ults, deadly cloaks etc. to eat their strength before the damage comes. You'd have to have very accurate timing, in order to drop the shields right before the damage, specifically on the person being focused, and also move out before the enemy group CCs you with a fear or streak, so it's a pretty skillful "dance-like' playstyle.

-- IMPLICATIONS --

How would shield nerfs affect groups:
In zerg fights? Not so much. Most setups are built in a way to handle zerg fights consistently, without the need of big survivability spikes, outside of the occasional ult when there's some unexpected oil damage or stuff like that. If anything it will force groups to build more into the tankier side, to survive other groups. This means a bit less damage vs zergs, but also more tankiness. Even if ults like barrier would get nerfed, I dont think it would be impactful in any way in zerg fights, since the whole point is to give the whole group 1-2 seconds of breathing room while the burst heals / HoTs bring everyone up to full HP, which they can accomplish.

I think a nerf to overall group survivability ( of any kind, be it shields, heals or a mix ) might help short term until ballgroups adjust. But you need to be careful what you wish because, if a heal / shield nerf ends up hitting the group's survival really bad, then leads will be forced to shift towards tanky setups.

There's lots of sets / skills that are not there to fight random players. Stuff like Snake in the Stars is rather useless vs solo / unorganized players. But if the survival nerfs are harsh enough to make groups drop stuff like this, then you'll notice that the difference won't be as big as you think when it comes to group vs zerg scenarios. Instead of running Elemental Catalyst, which I don't even bother proc'ing vs random players - I genuinely don't need the damage, I'm gonna run stuff like Beckoning Steel for less pressure / siege damage taken. Instead of Snake in the Stars I'll build more into HP / sustain / survival aspects. Instead of Balorgh on DDs I'll just run Colovian Highlands for more defensive ults. Might even drop a negate and potentially the necro colossus for 2 additional barriers / heal ults, since I probably won't even need the 2nd negate in Group vs Zerg content. If anything, the biggest impact will be disincentivizing groups from engaging with other groups due to lack of damage in favor of survivability and long, boring fights.

If you made it to the end, I hope you learned something new and have a better understanding of group dynamic. And if it still doesn’t make sense… guess it’s one of those ‘can’t explain to everyone’ things.

The best way to deal with it? Embrace it. Coordinated play always beats uncoordinated play, so grab some friends and give it a shot. It’s harder than it looks, but its super satisfying to see consistent improvement week by week. Bonus: most groups are happy to help. The more enemies, the more potential fun fights, and there are plenty of players willing to give tips, help with builds, or even run with your group to help and give feedback. Instead of complaining you can step up, learn, and enjoy the climb.

OR convince ZoS to give us 5v5/6v6/8v8 ranked arenas.

Face it, dude—you don't know what you're talking about. The poster above you, @ArctosCethlenn, runs one of the best ball groups on NA. Everything you're saying runs counter to how their group plays and builds.

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You have 12 people in the group.

I play as 6-8. I also think 12-man runs are bad. I either come across unchallenging fights that are boring since there's not enough pressure due to how strong the group is from sheer numbers, or fights where I actually end up wiping and then I feel even worse for wiping as a 12-man, which should almost never happen vs uncoordinated groups if people play well.

Then there's the matter of fighting enemy groups. Even if I win the fight, I have no satisfaction killing an enemy group when they are less than us, and I don't view it as a win, so If I outnumber the enemies I usually just don't engage. And there's very little 12-man groups on EU. Personally I wouldn't have a problem if max group size would be reduced to 8. I think it would even be a very healthy change for the game, since it's frustrating as solo/zerg to feel like there's not much you can do vs a 12-man, and it's also annoying as a 6-8 man to be zerged by a 12-man ballgroup.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You think Critical Riposte and Xoryn are a “ball group shielding” build. You have no clue what you’re talking about.

I'll actually take a step back try to explain stuff in a polite, detailed and constructive way, in the genuine hope that you understand things better and can gain a different perspective.

There's no such thing as a ball group shielding build when i have limited set and skill lines slots. I need to fit everything that's mandatory in the little space I have, in a way that it makes at least a decent amount of sense for each individual build.

Arkasis is generally an awful set in terms of how much group value it provides and there's plenty of better options. Lucent is a good piece on the shielder. My shielder doesn't have perfect lucent tho, and the shield is the person using the DK Standard and Undaunted damage orb to help with damage, so it makes more sense to use a set that procs when you take damage. Whether I have a 2nd set that gives Max HP or Max Mag makes 0 difference since I need to bring the Max Mag over the stam value in order for the heal orbs return mag, so Xoryn is as good as any other set.

Even if in 12-man you would have enough space for something like that, you still have less HP because you need movement speed to keep up with the group, so no healthy / boundless vitality, you can't slot 1h&shield since you need some sort of ranged healing to deal with negates, and you're locked out of options other than resto ( I actually like warden stamina mushrooms on this build as 3rd skill line so that you can heal inside a negate even as a support / shielder / healer, since you go in the frontline ). You kinda have to go melee to give shields in critical moments, and to acutually be able to keep shields up, you want to have more magicka than stamina. Otherwise healing orbs will restore stamina and you won't have enough mag to sustain the shields. This is also more minus max HP.

If you really want to min-max really bad and have 1 guy entirely devoted to shields, you can probably end up around the 8k, maybe 9k mark and still have a build that has all the checkmarks, including all the skill lines you have, and try to make minimal changes.

But if you're playing 12 what's even the point? You definitely can't afford to devote 2 people to just shields and 0 group utility outside of that, cuz then you definitely lack all the skill lines you want.

-- TARGET CAP --

Then a big issue is that shields ( non-ult ones ) are not gonna hit everyone in the group. With abilities capped as 6 targets you have to rotate around the group and recast it anywhere between 3 to 5-6 times to actually hit the whole group.

On average you'll get 5-6 people from the 1st cast, 8-9 people from the 2nd cast, and either 1 or 2 more people on future casts, depending on how good you are at positioning. So even if we take the amazing best case scenario, which is 3 casts, then you'd have to press contingency + soul burst and literally nothing else non stop. No time to heavy attack / break free / dodge for 100% uptime. Both have 6s duration assuming the shield won't break, so 3x from each is 6 casts for 100% uptime. In an actual fight you have to press your major evasion buff, your vigor ( multiple times - for the same reasoning with capped at 6 targets ), your ult, your burst heal when there's a negate, break free every 7s, dodge when pressured etc. You still want to have your HoTs up as much as you can, which in my case is vigor and cauterize, so when you end up getting hit hard by something unexpected - 2-3 sieges which got lucky timing and hit you at the same time, you're not sitting at 12k HP without any ongoing healing. So at best you'll have 50-55% uptime on YOURSELF. Which is gonna be like 35-40% maybe on the whole group? That's if you're super optimistic. So shields get less consistent the more people you play with from 6 and above. Cuz it's always gonna be roulette. Is the guy that actually needs help the one who got the shield? Yea? Great. No? Well, then you're pretty useless.

-- MAX STATS --

Another issue is low stats. The more you invest in HP the harder it gets to sustain. Blocking a lot is also mandatory so since you want acceptable pools of mag and stam you often are forced to run sugar skulls, in which case your sustain is insanely low. I had tons of complaints from my shielder that in pressure situation the build needs to non-stop heavy attack with resto, otherwise it's impossible to cast things. And the way I run it is built way heavier towards the sustain comfortable side. Getting interrupted by a streak at the end of a heavy attack destroys your sustain really bad for example.

-- SKILL LINES --

Then there's the opportunity cost. How good is the 10% shield from curative runeforms for example? Even with an absurd amount like 10k shield/cast, that's like 900-1000 extra shield. It's not BAD, but isn't it better to go something like storm calling for example? I can streak to help with CC. I can streak enemy groups defensively when they push us. I can actually streak away when I get caught in a bad spot, since I kinda want to pendulate from damage point to the backline of the group to try and keep shields up as much as I can on the whole group. And I can't do that if everyone has the same movement speed as me. If I go in the backline to shield the healers, I'm not gonna reach the DDs in front anymore. Then I also get Lightning Flood so I actually do something when we push, not just look at the group. And I get Power Surge. It's 1 button every 20s and heals insane amounts. Definitely more than the extra value I'd get from 10% shields.

Can also take the Necro skill line for example. How useful is 2.4k HP and some ult generation? I could for example go siphoning from NB instead. Then I get siphoning strikes, and can finally run sugar skulls and sustain without problems since with 55k health pool I dont mind the health cost. I have the Soul Tether as ult. Based on logs from the past months, gibbering shelter, even if it scales with HP, is on-par with a barrier in terms of how much defensive power you get out of it. The issue is I actually have to go in the damage consistently to proc it, and when there's a dangerous scenario I kinda don't want to do that. I still run the gibbering shelter as ult, but for a very specific reason. When there's a pressure scenario my players have the tendency to react at the exact same time. If one casts as barrier, at least it stacks with the gibbering shelter, even tho it feels like a complete waste to drop 2 ults, vs having 2 barriers and one of them being completely wasted. It's also a bit cheaper so it's not bad in zerg fights. It's pretty trash against other groups tho. With stuff like Soul Tether, yea, it wont be as big a number on logs, but then everyone from my group gets 12% more healing, including all active HoTs, burst heals etc.

-- SETS --

In a 12-man i'd probably change sets to something like Perfected Lucent, Perfected Pearlescent, trainee light sash and snow treads. That way you get 2 useful sets that are helpful for the group and get a decent amount of Max HP. I've seen some people run the DK Endless Archive set, or Blind Path Induction, but I think these are horrible choices. Yes you end up with some crazy numbers, but stuff like Pearlescent buffs the healing / damage of the whole group. So even if your HPS goes up, the overall group HPS goes down when you use selfish buffs. It just looks pretty since it's a big number, but it's bait and it hurts the group.

I also hate sets around ults, because I think it makes gameplay swingy rather than consistent. I might get used to having a barrier up and thinking I'm way tankier than I actually am. It's enough for one push to not pay attention that defensive ults are down and suddenly I overcommit in a push and end up wiping vs playing consistent and not ult dependent, and keeping ults as emergency buttons.

In Group vs Group environments, ult based gameplay is very inconsistent. You'll end up having scenarios where:
- They push you once. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You don't have a barrier. You feel squishy and die.

No matter what your group size is, or what's your target content ( zergs or other groups ), you will ALWAYS have to optimize against groups as well, since they are your biggest threat and you come across enemy groups anywhere between 1-2 times to 10-20 times a raid.

-- LOGS --

Shields overly inflate logs, and from a numbers perspective, they appear way stronger than they actually are. Let's take a specific scenario.
I'm sieging a keep. A dude throws a meatbag at my feet. 4 team mates come to help me. 3 of them drop a vigor. the shielder drops 2 shields. Am I in any danger? Not really. I won't die. I'm more than capable of healing myself as well. But if we look on logs for this exact scenario, we'll see 12k shields and 100% overhealing from vigor. In reality, I didn't even need the shields in the first place. The healing from the 3 vigors alone was enough to mitigate the meatbag DPS. So it's literally a useless cast that inflates log numbers.

This exact scenario happens hundreds of times across a raid, due to the nature of shields being "on top". There's a lot of chip damage that would have had close to 0 impact from all the HoTs underneath, but will get credited to the shielder instead. Excessive shields make heals less effective, and are redundant casts. Their main purpose is to prepare for burst, and in a zerg fight the only type of burst you can expect is when solo players happen to line up damage, not by choice, but by mistake. They simply happen to drop ults at the same time for example. Is that something you can anticipate? Definitely not. So it's literally just pure luck whether you happen to drop shields in that exact moment. If that moment passes, your shields don't do anything, really. Your team would have been at 100% HP anyway from all the heals, but on logs you get credited for doing something "helpful" while the rest of the team contributes to overhealing.

-- CONCLUSIONS --

It is possible to end up with a really high number if you want to invest an excessive amount in this exact thing. But with all the issues I mentioned ( negates , not having a burst heal , awful sustain, awful resource pool ), I genuinely don't think it's worth it. I actually believe it will end up hurting the group despite the log numbers. In practice it won't even feel like much of a difference in the majority of fights whether the shielder is there or not, since very often the shields absorb random stuff that would have been healed by HoTs anyway. Much like playing around ults, it will bait the group a lot. A big issue you have with shields is that gameplay is very swingy. In one moment, when the scribing shields are fresh and the Gibbering Shelter just proc'd, you feel super tanky. 2s later you feel insanely squishy and you're gonna have a "wtf" moment, wondering where that burst came from, when in reality it's just people not paying attention due to these survivability swings.

I don't think shields are OP, because I think going full shielder with all skill lines dedicated to it is genuinely log memes. They're ok in zerg fights. But I feel it way more when a healer is missing from my group vs zergs than when the shielder is missing. In GvG scenarios shields are really strong, and it's the primary reason I use them, to the point where I'm tempted to avoid groups if my shielder is not online. When fighting a 10-man as 8 people its impossible to survive a push when one of my players gets hit by 5 proximity detonations, 5 shalks, 5 contingencies, 5 synergies and 3 bow procs at the same time. So I really need that extra 12k eHP.

So, if I think shields are not OP, why don't I play another healer instead?
Primarily for the reason stated above - I think they're invaluable when going against other groups. In zerg fights they're kinda whatever. HoTs do a way better job at keeping the group alive there. If I just use HoTs and move around in a mid pressure scenario, it's generally fine. If HoTs drop and I just shield and burst heal, it feels pretty rough and dangerous.

In a 12-man I'd probably shift the shielder a bit more towards a healer, and focus specifically on the group vs group aspect with the shield skills.

Also playing a shielder is really fun as it's one of the more challenging builds to play. In zerg fights its slightly boring, as you don't care too much about the shield itself, and you're mostly a buff dispenser. You mostly cast them to keep the related buffs up, and the shield aspect of it is more of a "whatever, it doesn't hurt" kind of scenario. In group vs group it gets pretty tricky. You want to have a really good awarness of what the enemy is doing, and pay close attention to when they cast deep fisure, when they cast proximity detonation etc., since they have a short 6s duration, you want to drop them before the damage, but not too early either since you don't want stuff like destro ults, deadly cloaks etc. to eat their strength before the damage comes. You'd have to have very accurate timing, in order to drop the shields right before the damage, specifically on the person being focused, and also move out before the enemy group CCs you with a fear or streak, so it's a pretty skillful "dance-like' playstyle.

-- IMPLICATIONS --

How would shield nerfs affect groups:
In zerg fights? Not so much. Most setups are built in a way to handle zerg fights consistently, without the need of big survivability spikes, outside of the occasional ult when there's some unexpected oil damage or stuff like that. If anything it will force groups to build more into the tankier side, to survive other groups. This means a bit less damage vs zergs, but also more tankiness. Even if ults like barrier would get nerfed, I dont think it would be impactful in any way in zerg fights, since the whole point is to give the whole group 1-2 seconds of breathing room while the burst heals / HoTs bring everyone up to full HP, which they can accomplish.

I think a nerf to overall group survivability ( of any kind, be it shields, heals or a mix ) might help short term until ballgroups adjust. But you need to be careful what you wish because, if a heal / shield nerf ends up hitting the group's survival really bad, then leads will be forced to shift towards tanky setups.

There's lots of sets / skills that are not there to fight random players. Stuff like Snake in the Stars is rather useless vs solo / unorganized players. But if the survival nerfs are harsh enough to make groups drop stuff like this, then you'll notice that the difference won't be as big as you think when it comes to group vs zerg scenarios. Instead of running Elemental Catalyst, which I don't even bother proc'ing vs random players - I genuinely don't need the damage, I'm gonna run stuff like Beckoning Steel for less pressure / siege damage taken. Instead of Snake in the Stars I'll build more into HP / sustain / survival aspects. Instead of Balorgh on DDs I'll just run Colovian Highlands for more defensive ults. Might even drop a negate and potentially the necro colossus for 2 additional barriers / heal ults, since I probably won't even need the 2nd negate in Group vs Zerg content. If anything, the biggest impact will be disincentivizing groups from engaging with other groups due to lack of damage in favor of survivability and long, boring fights.

If you made it to the end, I hope you learned something new and have a better understanding of group dynamic. And if it still doesn’t make sense… guess it’s one of those ‘can’t explain to everyone’ things.

The best way to deal with it? Embrace it. Coordinated play always beats uncoordinated play, so grab some friends and give it a shot. It’s harder than it looks, but its super satisfying to see consistent improvement week by week. Bonus: most groups are happy to help. The more enemies, the more potential fun fights, and there are plenty of players willing to give tips, help with builds, or even run with your group to help and give feedback. Instead of complaining you can step up, learn, and enjoy the climb.

OR convince ZoS to give us 5v5/6v6/8v8 ranked arenas.

Face it, dude—you don't know what you're talking about. The poster above you, @ArctosCethlenn, runs one of the best ball groups on NA. Everything you're saying runs counter to how their group plays and builds.

[snip]

NA's best group had zero deaths against EU's best group. They beat them in a keep, they beat them open field, they even beat them while EU was attempting to zerg them down with their faction. I don't know why you wanna make this about NA vs EU, but if you do, NA is better at PvP. The best EU ballgroup came over and beat up some bad NA groups then left after dying to NAs best. There are probably 3 groups on NA right now that are better than EUs number 1.
[edited to remove quote]

fizzybeef wrote: »

MeridiaFavorsMe wrote: »

Honestly, running a forum poll asking players what the “appropriate nerf” should be feels like asking a 5-year-old to weigh in on the optimal monetary policy response to a liquidity trap under New Keynesian DSGE modeling with rational expectations and the zero lower bound. This kind of poll is going to be dominated by people voting for whatever they personally hate fighting, not what actually solves the underlying survivability problem.

You could propose a flat 99% healing nerf in 12-man groups at all times and a huge portion of the forum would still vote yes, because the poll is capturing frustration more than balance.

Not making ingame surveys but asking this in a forum wich 1% of playerbase max are using, is scandalous anyway

You posted in some Veng threads, so I might be confusing you with another user, and if this is the case, then please excuse me, but your remarks reminded me of one of the antiVeng short-lived arguments, such as “oh no, PvEers are deciding the future of PvP!” and “PvEers should not decide about PvP”. So this is just to say: you can’t have it both. What better place than here to ask players about a potential PvP change? This (PTS forum) is where some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable players dwell, ofc you ask them first. It’s a small sample, but it’s the most reliable. In-game survey (it’s WSM, Cyro is full of PvEers rn) would be less representative, I believe.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone!

Last week, we had shared two options to help address healing in PvP - most notably with stacked HoTs - after removing the initial change on the PTS: reducing the modifier to a lower value, or increasing the number of HoTs it would take to trigger the modifier. There was a lot of back-and-forth discussion in the original thread and, understandably, some pretty strong opinions.

As we start to finalize what will be going into Update 49, we’d like to ask what you would ultimately like to see, knowing our current bandwidth limitations. As we mentioned before, this is not the end all, be all; we do still intend to explore other options in the future beyond Update 49.

The two poll options below are currently the only options for Update 49. We did see many of you asking about not allowing the same type of heals to stack; this is something that was actually in the game years ago, and the sentiment was so poor that we removed it from the game. It’s something we could explore or iterate on in the future, but not for Update 49. We look forward to hearing and seeing what everyone is leaning toward for this update!

Thank you for your outstanding communication and work Gina and Team. Frankly, this PTS your transparency and reaction to player feedback is simply mind-blowing. GG and keep it up pls!

I voted for this change to be implemented, not because I believe it’s a good solution, but because:

1. You folks have smth ready to implement, which means work hours, so let’s make some use of it. Go for it, just like you did with Vengeance, and run it on live too because it’s the only way to fully test its implications (much bigger sample, many more variations/scenarios). I just hope that if this change badly backfires (which I think it likely will, too much griefing potential, imho), that you can react to it fast, roll it back, and implement another change.

2. I believe that healing in PvP is over-performing in general, and needs addressing.

3. I agree with @pinkpom that nerf is better than stagnation. And if a certain nerf happens to be a bad idea, then it can be confirmed as such, so we can tick that box and move on and replace it with another change/idea to experiment with different solutions untill we find a working one.

I think that limiting shield stacking, alongside HoT stacking, and looking into scribed shields as @YandereGirlfriend suggests, could be a good direction to test. I agree with @Teeba_Shei that shields are what makes ballgroups near invulnerable. It’s absolutely ridiculous how 12 grouped players can be hit with multiple coldfire/meatbags, not to mention other dmg from skills etc., some of these hits landing simultaneously, and their healthbars always stay full. Recently, I was hitting a group of players (not ball) with a coldfire ballista, while on a squishy PvE DK Sorc crit dot build (no-CP), and they were taking quite some damage that was fast and easily cleansed/healed by their healer. But at least I could see their healthbars change in value, while I recall hitting ballgrps (not that recently, on a more tanky build, no-proc no-CP), and their healthbars would not move at all despite taking damage from multiple players, sometimes simultaneously. It makes sense that these bars are always full if all dmg is absorbed by shields, and whatever trickles down just evaporates immediately on overhealing. I understand that might be needed for trials, but I reiterate Cyro players aren’t mob packs or hm bosses, trifecta vet trial power level is completely unnecessary in Cyrodiil.

Also, this current change (HoT stacking triggers all healing debuff), maybe needs to be better explained, why is all the healing affected, and not only HoTs (burst shouldn’t be affected, imo). The griefing potential needs to be taken into consideration as well, in particular the reporting of healers. This may be a very harsh patch for real healers in Cyro.

Last but not least, I’m happy to read about players excited about the next update and getting their streams ready for Cyro. It’s just that I personally wouldn’t expect that we’ll achieve a perfect balance with U49 or U50, even. It will take longer than that, probably after the class refresh is over. I would rather brace myself for a period of time where devs are experimenting with different ideas, some of which will inevitably be bad, and I anticipate a lot of roller coaster, tbh. Just please don’t get mad immediately after U49 goes live, fixing Cyro balance is a process in time.

Edit to add tag.

Is this is a reduced healing taken modifier, or healing received? I think many in the community don't know the difference, and think that their self-heals are going to be directly nerfed. From my understanding, healing taken is only heals sourced from other players, whereas healing received is pretty much all healing from any source that heals you.

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Is this is a reduced healing taken modifier, or healing received? I think many in the community don't know the difference, and think that their self-heals are going to be directly nerfed. From my understanding, healing taken is only heals sourced from other players, whereas healing received is pretty much all healing from any source that heals you.

I am pretty sure there is no difference between them, it is the same healing taken, but sometimes you can see "healing received" phrase, which is not standard for this.



Draugrkin's Grip
(5 items) Increases your damage done by 330 but reduces your healing received by 10%.

Both healing done and healing taken affect your self-healing abilities, because you are the source and the target for this skill. If you have bonuses for both - it will increase your healing pretty much. If you have debuff for first -10%, and buff for second +10% - it will result in 0.9*1.1 = 0.99% of your initial tooltip.

The past couple pages of bickering on specifics between Ballgroup players just reinforces how DRASTICALLY different the game is that they play.

The rest of us show up to play PVP in Cyrodiil, they show up to play Ballgroup.