PvP lets bring some anti large/ball group sets and stuff back

DarkStrifeYT · June 2

If you don't know Ball groups are usually hard to kill or unkillable unless certain conditions are met and there were sets and abilities that helped against large groups but due to armor and mitigation makes them unkillable. They also bring in a ton of lag. We aren't nerfing the ball group but I'd suggest we buff things below.

Magicka Detonation and its morphs: New effect, Ignores player spell resistances and player damage shield. Both morphs will have it. This was the old anti large group abilities that I rarely see used outside a few builds. Inevitable detatonation allowed it to be done safely at a distance and when purged would let it go off regardless. However spell resistances and damage shields have made this ability and the morphs useless. Having it specifically ignore player resistances would heavily make it so ball groups will have said member either split or take massive if not lethal damage. Proximity detonation will also have its damage increased by a bit.

pleaugebreak: Should have damage increased back to its original but have a much shorter aoe ranged. This will again providing its use for anti ball group, having a smaller aoe on it would also make it so that way it does infact punish tightly stacked players instead. Maybe short it to 1-2m?

Both of these must be uncapped on players.

Buffing the ability or set can help mitigate ball groups or even force members to split off. This will by no.means make ball groups horrible either for those who use it but will have to play smarter. Ballgroups have always existed but sets and ability nerfs gave no counter play, so instead of nerfing lets actually buff the others. Especially having magicka detonation ignore resistances will give all classes and builds an ability a chance. Also bringing back the older pleaugebreak damage but making its range smaller will keep its niche use.

My goal isnt to punish gameplay types to non-existence here but to help counter some of the more powerful types. Especially since ive been around since 2015.

What do you all think?

Major_Mangle · June 2

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

Nordstern · June 2

In my opinion the most important thing in this topic is a hp limit. Most ball groups run around 40k hp on average. There should be a hard cap of 35k hp maximum, preferably even lower.

moderatelyfatman · June 2

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

Not sure Azureblight will fix things but I'm actually ok with 'good' ballgroups existing.

Ballgroups are like gankers: when they are rare and restricted to only the top players being successful, then it adds to the game. But when it becomes a refuge for mediocre players, then it needs to go.

BXR_Lonestar · June 2

DarkStrifeYT wrote: »

If you don't know Ball groups are usually hard to kill or unkillable unless certain conditions are met and there were sets and abilities that helped against large groups but due to armor and mitigation makes them unkillable. They also bring in a ton of lag. We aren't nerfing the ball group but I'd suggest we buff things below.

Magicka Detonation and its morphs: New effect, Ignores player spell resistances and player damage shield. Both morphs will have it. This was the old anti large group abilities that I rarely see used outside a few builds. Inevitable detatonation allowed it to be done safely at a distance and when purged would let it go off regardless. However spell resistances and damage shields have made this ability and the morphs useless. Having it specifically ignore player resistances would heavily make it so ball groups will have said member either split or take massive if not lethal damage. Proximity detonation will also have its damage increased by a bit.

pleaugebreak: Should have damage increased back to its original but have a much shorter aoe ranged. This will again providing its use for anti ball group, having a smaller aoe on it would also make it so that way it does infact punish tightly stacked players instead. Maybe short it to 1-2m?

Both of these must be uncapped on players.

Buffing the ability or set can help mitigate ball groups or even force members to split off. This will by no.means make ball groups horrible either for those who use it but will have to play smarter. Ballgroups have always existed but sets and ability nerfs gave no counter play, so instead of nerfing lets actually buff the others. Especially having magicka detonation ignore resistances will give all classes and builds an ability a chance. Also bringing back the older pleaugebreak damage but making its range smaller will keep its niche use.

My goal isnt to punish gameplay types to non-existence here but to help counter some of the more powerful types. Especially since ive been around since 2015.

What do you all think?

Do you not understand that any time they come out with a set that is designed to destroy ballgroups, those sets simply make ballgroups stronger because ballgroups will use those sets in coordination with other sets, abilities, and tactics to maximize damage against other groups, including other non-ballgroups? That is pretty much how it works.

Exhibit A? Vicious Death. The bomber's set. It was intended to help blow up big groups of players who are stacked tightly. Guess what set almost EVERY ballgroup damage role uses? Vicious death.

That said, people need to accept that ballgroups aren't the problem and they aren't going anywhere. Ballgroups are the answer to zergs. Without ballgroups (and the occasional bomb), the only thing left in PVP would be zerging.

Luneca · June 2

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

The funny part is this: did anyone outside of ball groups even die to Azureblight even once?

Maybe a lvl 10.

DarkStrifeYT · June 2

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

DarkStrifeYT wrote: »

If you don't know Ball groups are usually hard to kill or unkillable unless certain conditions are met and there were sets and abilities that helped against large groups but due to armor and mitigation makes them unkillable. They also bring in a ton of lag. We aren't nerfing the ball group but I'd suggest we buff things below.

Magicka Detonation and its morphs: New effect, Ignores player spell resistances and player damage shield. Both morphs will have it. This was the old anti large group abilities that I rarely see used outside a few builds. Inevitable detatonation allowed it to be done safely at a distance and when purged would let it go off regardless. However spell resistances and damage shields have made this ability and the morphs useless. Having it specifically ignore player resistances would heavily make it so ball groups will have said member either split or take massive if not lethal damage. Proximity detonation will also have its damage increased by a bit.

pleaugebreak: Should have damage increased back to its original but have a much shorter aoe ranged. This will again providing its use for anti ball group, having a smaller aoe on it would also make it so that way it does infact punish tightly stacked players instead. Maybe short it to 1-2m?

Both of these must be uncapped on players.

Buffing the ability or set can help mitigate ball groups or even force members to split off. This will by no.means make ball groups horrible either for those who use it but will have to play smarter. Ballgroups have always existed but sets and ability nerfs gave no counter play, so instead of nerfing lets actually buff the others. Especially having magicka detonation ignore resistances will give all classes and builds an ability a chance. Also bringing back the older pleaugebreak damage but making its range smaller will keep its niche use.

My goal isnt to punish gameplay types to non-existence here but to help counter some of the more powerful types. Especially since ive been around since 2015.

What do you all think?

Do you not understand that any time they come out with a set that is designed to destroy ballgroups, those sets simply make ballgroups stronger because ballgroups will use those sets in coordination with other sets, abilities, and tactics to maximize damage against other groups, including other non-ballgroups? That is pretty much how it works.

Exhibit A? Vicious Death. The bomber's set. It was intended to help blow up big groups of players who are stacked tightly. Guess what set almost EVERY ballgroup damage role uses? Vicious death.

That said, people need to accept that ballgroups aren't the problem and they aren't going anywhere. Ballgroups are the answer to zergs. Without ballgroups (and the occasional bomb), the only thing left in PVP would be zerging.

Oh I do understand but the sets were working as intended, but my suggestion still stands. I mean if you are a big tough guy and get hit by 100 different smaller weaker people you will infact feel the blows.

However bringing back the stuff to counter it and give the ability to can and will help.

CatoUnchained · June 2

Luneca wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

The funny part is this: did anyone outside of ball groups even die to Azureblight even once?

Maybe a lvl 10.

Yes, Azurblight used to work pretty good against ball groups. Then ZOS nerfed it and made it a worthless set for some reason.

Artisian0001 · June 2

DarkStrifeYT wrote: »

If you don't know Ball groups are usually hard to kill or unkillable unless certain conditions are met and there were sets and abilities that helped against large groups but due to armor and mitigation makes them unkillable. They also bring in a ton of lag. We aren't nerfing the ball group but I'd suggest we buff things below.

Magicka Detonation and its morphs: New effect, Ignores player spell resistances and player damage shield. Both morphs will have it. This was the old anti large group abilities that I rarely see used outside a few builds. Inevitable detatonation allowed it to be done safely at a distance and when purged would let it go off regardless. However spell resistances and damage shields have made this ability and the morphs useless. Having it specifically ignore player resistances would heavily make it so ball groups will have said member either split or take massive if not lethal damage. Proximity detonation will also have its damage increased by a bit.

pleaugebreak: Should have damage increased back to its original but have a much shorter aoe ranged. This will again providing its use for anti ball group, having a smaller aoe on it would also make it so that way it does infact punish tightly stacked players instead. Maybe short it to 1-2m?

Both of these must be uncapped on players.

Buffing the ability or set can help mitigate ball groups or even force members to split off. This will by no.means make ball groups horrible either for those who use it but will have to play smarter. Ballgroups have always existed but sets and ability nerfs gave no counter play, so instead of nerfing lets actually buff the others. Especially having magicka detonation ignore resistances will give all classes and builds an ability a chance. Also bringing back the older pleaugebreak damage but making its range smaller will keep its niche use.

My goal isnt to punish gameplay types to non-existence here but to help counter some of the more powerful types. Especially since ive been around since 2015.

What do you all think?

1-2m on plague? Are you even playing ESO? This would be useless.

Gabriel_H · June 2

CatoUnchained wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

The funny part is this: did anyone outside of ball groups even die to Azureblight even once?

Maybe a lvl 10.

Yes, Azurblight used to work pretty good against ball groups. Then ZOS nerfed it and made it a worthless set for some reason.

Server calcs. The problem is the server calcs. Hence Vengeance.

The inherent flaw in my opinion in the way ZOS have tried to tackle various problems has historically been to add counters. They then add counters to the counters because there are unintended consequences. That adds server calcs, upon server calcs, upon server calcs, and performance in Cyro grinds to a halt.

Sub-classing has made that problem worse. Because classes can now ditch unused skill lines and replace low server calc skills (say a single target DoT) with an AoE DoT. More server calcs.

This is why they are bringing in Vengeance. I do not like Vengeance, but I do agree with the underlying idea behind it - to reduce the server calcs. I personally would have simply limited the number of DoT, HoTs, and shields someone could have on them at any one time, along with reworking the proc sets to provide a passive rather than active proc or explored the option of splitting the map.

It would be nice if we could have a fully operational Cyro, but the technology is too expensive (or may not even exist) for ZOS to give players absolutely everything they want. You have to work with what you've got, and at the moment that means working with server calcs that get overloaded when players have 20 DoTs, 12 HoTs and all the rest.

El_Borracho · June 2

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Bring back Azureblight by allowing the explosion to scale in PvP environments again. Good ballgroups knew how to deal with the set while the mediocre ones exposed themselves by running some mega anti "Azureblight" propaganda campaign here on the forums.

Not sure Azureblight will fix things but I'm actually ok with 'good' ballgroups existing.

Ballgroups are like gankers: when they are rare and restricted to only the top players being successful, then it adds to the game. But when it becomes a refuge for mediocre players, then it needs to go.

I actually agree with this sentiment, as long as when you say "good" you mean "organized" and not the zerg. Those ballgroups will not be affected by sets like Azureblight.

The problem arises when you have a good ballgroup that gets bored and decides to troll or uses known bugs to their advantage. For example, there was a time last year when a DC 6 man group figured out how to cause massive lag spikes and used those to wipe other groups. Or just the nuisance keep runner group. While the first example has been fixed, there should be a counter to the second example that makes HOT and shield spamming a liability

Gabriel_H · June 2

El_Borracho wrote: »

there should be a counter to the second example that makes HOT and shield spamming a liability

Or no counter and severely limit the stacking/spamming instead and increase performance as to boot. Two birds, one stone.

tomofhyrule · June 2

The whole argument back on the PTS last cycle about capping heals did lead to a lot of players calling for the obvious solution: don’t allow HoTs of the same type to stack. You should not be able to have 10+ echoing vigors and radiating regen on you simultaneously.

The devs actually came into that thread to say they had that in the beginning and removed it after backlash, but that was ages ago. They said it was still on the table to try it again in the modern age.

I wonder what ever happened to that thought… We never even got a full resolution on the incoming heals thing from last cycle.

Ankael07 · June 2

Bring back knocking players off the walls easily.

tsaescishoeshiner · June 3

I don't see ball groups countering zergs.

An uncoordinated group of good PvPers can counter a zerg just by fighting them and having good builds.

What ball groups do is farm AP while running around a fort, essentially making the fight feel pointless for anyone not in a ball group. That's not their intention, I get why they enjoy it (especially when two ball groups fight) but it's the effect on others.

It was nice playing Vengeance and getting a break from them. More limits on their power would be nice. It may be better to adjust the sets they already use than try to introduce new ones.

If they did, they could create skills or sets that stopped purges from working for a while. This would counter ball groups and 1vXers without helping them, since other players don't use purges as much. Having to deal with snares and defiles would slow them down.

Luneca · June 3

Gabriel_H wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

there should be a counter to the second example that makes HOT and shield spamming a liability

Or no counter and severely limit the stacking/spamming instead and increase performance as to boot. Two birds, one stone.

If they delete smart healing it would become way harder to run around at max speed without paying attention to what we are doing and output heals without any real counter (negate doesn't even work on all heals). But removing smart healing also means cutting those two sticky heals and the shielding from the equation as well.

Everyone can be a healer because smart healing enables it in the first place. No thought needed to heal, no care about positioning or the situation you are seeing. Just heal. A similar thing can be said of all defensive mechanics in the game including roll and block, though.

Compare that to doing damage, where you not only have to do more to actually achieve damage goals, but you have to spend more resources and time to do so.

The power budget is lopsided between offense and defense as well. While it might be intentional and justified, that imbalance there is exactly why ball groups will never be properly addressed.

The healing system is essentially automated allowing you to do healing without thinking, then swap to damage immediately in the same instance of time. That ability to do that alone is powerful, but becomes way more powerful when stacked. It becomes even more powerful when there's "skillful" healers around that can swap between offense and defense without any trouble.

Consider the situation where I'm about to die. I've slotted CP to purge at low hp and give a damage shield. Doesn't sound impressive. Okay. Next, I use healing soul and roll (and those that know, know how powerful this is). After that I have a damage shield, I have 100% of the debuffs purged off me, and I have the ability to shut down nearly all damage in the game + change positioning.

On a micro scale that is already powerful. Now, what happens when this is expanded to a larger scale and these effects start stacking? Already in that micro environment and vacuum it is a powerful counter that shuts down an opponent's offense for at least second, and in that time I can turn around and reliably do damage without ever fearing death.

The problem is that everything there scales up. And there's other combinations that do the same thing and also scale. And the ability to scale it is all enabled by smart healing. Because if I had to actually select someone and watch HP bars beyond a cursoury look, then there is no way I can attack and defend at the same time.

But that' not what is happening on live and it's being enabled by the smart healing system, which also definitely has to be contributing to lag.

Until they address smart healing, I honestly don't see anything changing. We'll be nerfing people, but the relative power of the group won't change because they essentially have the power of automation on their side, and they can stack that automation to a degree that no one outside of a group can.

And in ESO, the less actions you have to take, the more advantage you have because it enables more damage output. And it goes back to the game lacking combat dimensions other than damage.

In the past there was trick play and other counters that could be used to at least make people sweat. ZOS nerfed them all. Time stop, Azureblight, etc. ZOS even nerfed the time on Mage's Volcanic Rune and Trap Beast. Seriously?

Lord_Hev · June 3

Instead of using band-aid solutions on previous solutions that were band-aid attempts that now need bandaging, zos should instead focus on performing surgery on the massive wound that band-aids do not fix. Addressing the root cause is a logical first step. Things like multiple same HoTs and shield stacking, underlining core issues with hyper-optimization with group support sets, and easily rectifiable outlier sets such as rush of agony.