You can do twice as much with haste. Scrolls don't need concentration checks and spellcaster on defensive casting mode doesn't give attacks of opportunity.
Scrolls can be interrupted if you knock someone down early enough, though, and I'm pretty sure they are not subject to haste in that they let you do two per round. You get just one.
But I digress. You are right, there are other ways to heal people with more common items. PvP is an extreme scenario by the server's standards, more extreme than any dungeon generally, so throwing all you have at it is reasonable. The only question is, will you have time when someone jumps you and is wailing on you while all you do is stand there and hope you can outheal their damage? That's what I mean by throwing away initiative. It just isn't likely that, unless they expected and prepared for the assassin, they're just going to be able to effectively fight back. It's not reasonable to assume they would succeed at doing so, even if they blow a bunch of expensive consumables. They're more likely to die after wasting those consumables or just escape.
SURE victory? Where? Its the gankers who decide when and where the fight takes place.
I was referring a situation where two gankers attack you when you are alone. They underestimate you, you manage to beat one of them, but get ganked anyway because now the pair is made immortal by the 6 second rule.
Yes, I believe it's a sure victory because the gankers decide when and where it takes place. They don't even have to initiate if the odds aren't in their favour, so they wait until it's certain. If they do, since they're ahead from the beginning, they can typically leave any time they want, unless they overcommit after underestimating their target. Underestimating a target and paying dearly for it is perfectly normal and I fully believe the math supports that the average self-buffed/potion-buffed character is generally capable of knocking out two unbuffed people at a similar level caught by surprise.
I arrived at that conclusion knowing how easy it is to KO someone of an equal level within one or two rounds even if they are buffed, it just takes a little luck. Unbuffed characters on this server tend to be very frail even if they have people around them. And you never want to have to deal with someone who's full buffed if you're only partially prepared with a couple extended spells meant to make your buff dance quicker if someone else gets jumped and you want to respond to it. It would be much better to get out of there or finish buffing and then look at the situation before throwing yourself at it, no? This is a luxury you rarely enjoy when defending from a gank, and squandering it is almost never a good idea.
Mostly the gankers outnumber the ganked. This 6 second rule gives them further advantage and makes your ability to survive a gank even less. I have never been attacked by a party smaller then my own. Some times one on one. Mostly two or more on one. This makes it harder for me to defend my self and less risky for the attackers, who at the very least can just heal, retreat and try again. At best I can escape but winning against odds is even harder now then before.
That much I can understand and sympathise with. You are right that the party with more numbers will have more of an advantage than they already did with this change. I think that's a good thing as far as getting jumped goes, because it gives you a chance to stop someone being instantly murdered, wake them up if you're quick, and let them run while you try to fight back, however unlikely it is you win when caught by surprised.
But it's already so unlikely that if you get ganked while outnumbered, you'll actually knock someone out. Escape is always the better option, trying to fight a gank is almost never a good idea unless you were expecting it.
I am going to sound harsh here, but I think this opinion is just out of touch with what PvP has devolved into on the server.
Many thanks to MAB for elaborating. Regarding his opinion on the matter - I do not believe any mechanical change intended to combat this "gank 'n' grab" behaviour is negative. I realise that we will gain nothing by arguing about it forever and the devs have their own priorities, but I don't believe it should stay that way.
There should be all sorts of prevention methods, not to steer people in the other direction, but literally restrict it if it is seen as undesirable.
What about this - if you try to pick up a corpse, it invokes the same script that makes it take several seconds to pick up a herb. Even if the player remains stealthed until they succeed in picking up the corpse, it gives people time to dispel darkness or use a buff that lets them see through it, and detect the assassin. One of many examples where you could introduce counterplay without asking people to do something that might break character.
In this case it doesn't matter if you are rescuing someone or not. The gameplay mechanic is implemented and you have to play around it, PvE or PvP.
Someone else can probably come up with more/better solutions but that is one I think would be great if you want to stop gank 'n' grabs.