MeridiaFavorsMe wrote: »

logs showing it accounts for 40% of the group’s total healing and shielding

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

So yea, your proof is a non-functional build with pretty much 0 group utility other than shields,

Yeah, a totally useless build that makes the entire group functionally immortal. No one would ever run a shield spammer in a ball group.

And even after being shown you were wrong, you’re still out here trying to justify ball group shields with Olympic-level mental gymnastics.

Why don't you play this trash and see how useful it feels?

- How you're gonna keep up with the group with your 3x healthy bs instead of swift.
- How are you gonna break free if you need to go in the frontline to actually use the shields and constantly block to not die with your resource pools and missing survival instincts CP since you slotted some garbage CP like boundless. As a matter of fact, how do you even keep up with your frontliners with lower MS?
- Im interested to see how much the group has to pump burst heals into you when you fall behind due to lack of celerity for boundless to bring you outside of execute range.
- Id love to see how you get your mag back after casting 3 shields with 700 recovery and no way to heavy attack.
- I wanna see where you have space to slot stuff like Frost Cloak, Molten Weapons, a 2nd Negate, a 2nd Streak in the group since you waste skill lines for stuff like Bone Tyrant and Curative Runeforms.
- Im curious what you're gonna do when there's a negate. Oh wait, you don't even have access to a burst heal with this setup. Guess you just wait and look at how your team dies. So which one do you give up on? Burst heal and watch your team die when they need you most, or go resto staff for burst heal and die yourself due to no major evasion?
- How are you gonna use Gibbering Shelter vs another group? You walk in the damage? It's your only ult since the 2nd one has to be the curative runeforms ult. Otherwise there's no space for a vigor / flare etc. What exactly do you expect to happen in such a scenario? You don't have movement speed, you don't have impen in a crit dmg meta, you take extra damage from magic from all the heavy pieces, you miss defensive CPs.
- How exactly are you helping damage by the way? Any synergy? Anything at all? Nah, not really.
- How do you frontline to give shields if you need to waste your immov pot on cooldown for arkasis?
- Since you gave up on the movement speed aspects I told you, how do you plan to shield the whole group ( assuming it's a 12-man group, since otherwise it's impossible to fit these skill lines in ). It's capped at 6 people you know? You could have a 2nd shielder, but then you have 2 people with useless selfish skilllines and 0 group buffs and you end up in the same scenario - not enough skill line slots. You know double casting won't shield the whole group right? You have to manuver in a way that you catch 6 different people from 6 different casts. That definitely sounds doable with healthy traits.

So yea, to actually FIX this build and make it playable in a group environment
- Bone tyrant + useful skill line = -2412 HP ( ~3000 with buffs ).
- Curative runeforms, + useful skill line = -10% shields.
- 3x Healthy +3 swift = 3000 HP
- Boundless CP + celerity / pain's refuge = -1400 HP.
- 1h&shield, + Resto = -1000HP.

Would you look at that. You ended up right around the 51-52k health mark and without the 10% shield buff, which will be useful for actual group utility.

I can go on and on. Completely meaningless post for a totally useless cheese build meant just for showcase and satisfying delusions. 100% l2p issue.

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

So yea, your proof is a non-functional build with pretty much 0 group utility other than shields,

Yeah, a totally useless build that makes the entire group functionally immortal. No one would ever run a shield spammer in a ball group.

And even after being shown you were wrong, you’re still out here trying to justify ball group shields with Olympic-level mental gymnastics.

Why don't you play this trash and see how useful it feels?

- How you're gonna keep up with the group with your 3x healthy bs instead of swift.
- How are you gonna break free if you need to go in the frontline to actually use the shields and constantly block to not die with your resource pools and missing survival instincts CP since you slotted some garbage CP like boundless. As a matter of fact, how do you even keep up with your frontliners with lower MS?
- Im interested to see how much the group has to pump burst heals into you when you fall behind due to lack of celerity for boundless to bring you outside of execute range.
- Id love to see how you get your mag back after casting 3 shields with 700 recovery and no way to heavy attack.
- I wanna see where you have space to slot stuff like Frost Cloak, Molten Weapons, a 2nd Negate, a 2nd Streak in the group since you waste skill lines for stuff like Bone Tyrant and Curative Runeforms.
- Im curious what you're gonna do when there's a negate. Oh wait, you don't even have access to a burst heal with this setup. Guess you just wait and look at how your team dies. So which one do you give up on? Burst heal and watch your team die when they need you most, or go resto staff for burst heal and die yourself due to no major evasion?
- How are you gonna use Gibbering Shelter vs another group? You walk in the damage? It's your only ult since the 2nd one has to be the curative runeforms ult. Otherwise there's no space for a vigor / flare etc. What exactly do you expect to happen in such a scenario? You don't have movement speed, you don't have impen in a crit dmg meta, you take extra damage from magic from all the heavy pieces, you miss defensive CPs.
- How exactly are you helping damage by the way? Any synergy? Anything at all? Nah, not really.
- How do you frontline to give shields if you need to waste your immov pot on cooldown for arkasis?
- Since you gave up on the movement speed aspects I told you, how do you plan to shield the whole group ( assuming it's a 12-man group, since otherwise it's impossible to fit these skill lines in ). It's capped at 6 people you know? You could have a 2nd shielder, but then you have 2 people with useless selfish skilllines and 0 group buffs and you end up in the same scenario - not enough skill line slots. You know double casting won't shield the whole group right? You have to manuver in a way that you catch 6 different people from 6 different casts. That definitely sounds doable with healthy traits.

So yea, to actually FIX this build and make it playable in a group environment
- Bone tyrant + useful skill line = -2412 HP ( ~3000 with buffs ).
- Curative runeforms, + useful skill line = -10% shields.
- 3x Healthy +3 swift = 3000 HP
- Boundless CP + celerity / pain's refuge = -1400 HP.
- 1h&shield, + Resto = -1000HP.

Would you look at that. You ended up right around the 51-52k health mark and without the 10% shield buff, and now you can actually do a lot of useful stuff while still having decent shields.

I can go on and on. Completely meaningless post for a totally useless cheese build meant just for showcase and satisfying delusions. 100% l2p issue.

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You have 12 people in the group.

I play as 6-8.

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.

-- 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.

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.

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.

There's 1 or 2 good groups on NA. Might be wrong since I haven't been on NA in a year or so, but it was Adrestia and one other that I dont remember the name of. Also the majority of builds are awful according to most EU players, since we have different playstyles.

You're a lost cause by the way.

evLRise wrote: »

No serious group runs Xoryn.

NA players still didn't get past the Clever Alchemist phase, but hey, each their own.

evLRise wrote: »

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.

So because 12 skilled people live on the same continent as you, regional performance somehow determines whether your explanation is valid?

Logic clearly isn’t doing much work here, so feel free to keep ranting.