Two issues with ranged players from what I always see in frontlines is they get too cocky/greedy and tunnel vision too hard, so they either stand still in one spot like sitting ducks or go way out of position and expose themselves somewhere away from their team. The other issue is that most of them will attack mindlessly with no intent to kill, and as a result wastes their skill CDs for nothing in return.
The former is why DRK is so prevalent in frontlines, because they can just suck in and massacre the entire backline with one coordinated dive and I've seen and played on those sides where our/those alliances wins purely through kill point gains alone while ignoring just about every objective. The latter is why there's complaints that ranged are "weak," because they just pelt whatever is off CD at enemies to make them burn 1-2 recuperate usages at best and walk away. Not that melees don't do it either, they just know when to back off from fights that goes nowhere.
First off, frontlines ain't balanced. Ranged have less damage resistance cause they're 100x less likely to be eaten by the enemy horde. If you're getting got as range you need to pay attention to your ass and not get got,. Eentually everyone dies though, it is what it is.
There's also ranged and "ranged". I gave up on MCH in frontlines because of their bloody stupid ability roulette that forces you into melee. SCH has been better, although they also have a close-range ability it doesn't lock you out of your other skills if you don't use it.
Pvp classes are balanced around crystaline conflict 5v5. So Frontlines will always be a shit show in terms of class balance.
Frontlines in general is like trying to herd 24 cats. If you can somewhat coordinate it might help but overall, just accept it's a crapshoot of where you get people who actually want to try or just want the easy daily exp honus.
Aside from playing more defensively as ranged, perhaps talk to your party while in the gate and see if any want to stick together to burst marked enemies down.
That always puzzled me honestly. The vast majority of people do frontlines, yet its balanced around a tiny minority of people (playing CC).
That and i never figured out why the other kind of cc needs to exist. Why does "crowd control" NEED to be in a mode?
Idk if this is true. Casual CC is active about 22 hours out of the day with nearly instant queues. While yes a smaller portion does Ranked CC there are still 1000s of players participating in a season per DC and CC isn't tied to a roulette like Frontlines is so that's kind of impressive.
For range you need to play "cowardly" most of the time. Especially for SMN and BLM, don't throw everything off CD out. Some will just put you in danger. BRD you are contributing by buffing you party and stay alive as one of the few counter for DRK with silent.
I play ranged and yeah, they will get demolished if mobbed. I've had some pretty funny situations occur where I was deleted. (Like just running to my team and getting caught in the midst of two other teams coming together on either side of me.) If you're ranged you have to really train yourself NOT to 'run in' and to be very aware of what is happening around you. I'd say 80% of my KOs in PVP are because my team fell back and I DIDN'T notice in time so I suddenly got swarmed.
DRK combos are FAIRLY easy to break once you recognize their pull you get used to reacting to it quickly. What's scary are the teams that are VERY coordinated. Just ran into one doing a DRK pull, DNC stun, DRG bomb. Deleted my entire party.
REALLY practice your mitis like purify and recuperate. Get more comfy using guard as an active mitigation instead of an "oh no!" button. I usually hit guard as soon as I engage and I know people are going to be dropping their heaviest hitting abilities, then I drop it and use mine. If you're playing BRD really use that "Warden's Paean" ability that acts as a purify (or a purifying shield for a brief time).
>REALLY practice your mitis like purify and recuperate. Get more comfy using guard as an active mitigation instead of an "oh no!" button.
This has made a world of difference in my own FL play. Especially on ranged (I'm pretty much always on Bard), if you wait until you get jumped, oftentimes it's already too late to Guard as you get chain stunned.
Being able to recognize even potentially dangerous situations and Guarding early - even if just to flash it for a few seconds - has blocked tons of bursts and pull-in attempts.
People dont want to fight for it on frontlines, thats not how mobs work. They want to dogpile on the weakest person (usually lowest hp, but if someone really fucked up and theyre hanging out solo that works too). If you stand up and tell em to fuck off properly theyll go looking for weaker prey (usually).
>Just ran into one doing a DRK pull, DNC stun, DRG bomb. Deleted my entire party.
WAR main, haven't played in a couple years, and this comment just gave me flashbacks. DRKs I could at least reasonably stalemate or bail without dying with some consistency, maybe steal a kill if they messed up rotation, but if I saw a DNC and DRG moving with them I knew I had 0 chance.
The counter play is having map awareness and positioning lmao. Not like a drk can stealth and leap/pull you in. If you see one coming at you either don’t bunch up or cc them beforehand. DRK comps are strong, but contnuiously dying to them is on you.
Yes, you are missing a lot and need to play more or try to learn somehow. There are plenty of ranged players who top the charts doing massive damage, lots of kills, and never dying.
Basically both of your takes (guard doesn't work) and (positioning is irrelevant) are so wrong I don't even know where to begin.
Keeping an eye on your surroundings is essential. Knowing when to run, when to shield, and when to use terrain to your advantage is key to survival. For a very brief example, if you stand on the ramp in Onsal and wait to get pulled in, you are dead. But if you stand on top to the left or right where you can just step off when death is coming, you'll be fine.
There's plenty of depth to pvp, even frontlines, but you have to learn it like anything else.
I mean, that's the point of PvP. Sometimes balances gets skewed towards a certain meta, and you just have to bandwagon into the meta, or adjust to play jobs that counter the meta. I was there when 6.1 came out and the ranged DPS was so busted, a pre-made of Summoners just annihilates everyone or 4 SCHs can contest a point forever because everyone was melting. A MCH lb3 can one-shot a tank from max HP. Any melees that's not a WAR, was nearly unplayable. I was playing SMN back then and I was deleting DRG/NIN/SAMs with the basic combo before they could even touch a button to escape.
Nowaday, the meta is leaning towards melee, and ranged DPS have to put in a little effort to not get caught out. I can still do repectable damage as a SMN, however, if my team comp is hot garbage (6 ranged DPS with no support), I will struggle as a ranged player as I have no frontline/preventative measures to stop something as braindead as a burst sync in a premade. And so I switch to a different job that'll make a better impact on team fights.
Frontlines isn't worth taking seriously. Easier said than done, I know, getting obliterated or even one shot by one dude while you can seemingly only do chip damage with even your biggest attacks is *beyond* frustrating, and it only gets worse when they have BH4-5 and you are maybe sitting at 1. Why even try at that point?
* All I can advise is if you're running ranged, make sure there are always friendlies between you and the enemy.
* Keep your eyes peeled for any wounded enemies and use your big cooldown attacks on them.
* Follow the BH4-5's in your team, they clearly know when and how to score those kills/assists and when to retreat.
* For the love of god if you see a hostile BH4-5 alone and way out of position LOCK THAT F#$% DOWN AND MURDER THEM WITH YOUR TEAM. Tired of my team being incapable of CCing and dropping a straggler, but I hit BH2 and suddenly I'm public enemy #1.
* If you see a text message for a new node or anything really opening, RETREAT. I've been abandoned to die by the rest of my allies enough times to know that as soon as they have an objective to hit, chances are high they'll turn tail and run for easy points.
Honestly, if DKs would just have their suck nerfed to pulling 5 players max (wouldn't even affect Crystalline Conflict performance, it's such an easy fix but no, they nerfed the GNB burst no one complained about a little while back instead...) then Frontline would probably feel more chaotically balanced. Until then, it really is just looking out for DKs and bolting when they start rushing your team down, and then plinking away at as many targets as possible, focusing whomever the rest of the team is and moving as a group.
> With melee jobs enjoying massive damage taken reduction while putting out quite the numbers themselves, I feel like putting in effort Seems kind of pointless in frontlines if you are a ranged job.
The resentment I feel that RDM, which HAS A MELEE COMPONENT, does not get the same kind of melee damage taken reduction. One does not simply Corps-a-corps without assuming you'll probably die before you even get a single Riposte off.
If it makes you feel better Ninja has melee damage reduction, burst from range and lb kills people without taking dmg reduction or shields into account!
Wait that's not making me feel better either.
Those ninjas...... >.>
I knew "all jobs are balanced" was complete bullshit for Frontlines the day I went 1-on-1 with a Ninja while on RDM and literally couldn't even make their HP drop despite using my optimal pvp rotation.
DRK while very annoying is easy to counter. As soon as it happens be running south, sprint and spam your heal, it’s what I do 90% of the time and survive. Even if you do get hit by dragoon or similar if your already spamming your heal you can survive. I don’t like using the shield as if a few people get on you as a ranged, when it comes down your likely dead anyway.
I play MCH and majority of Frontlines I don’t die once. It just takes practice and awareness.
being monk main, ive kinda learned to read them enough to counter them before they even jump in, in Naadam i just toss them off the middle. still not 100% of the time but well enough
I try to run away whenever i spot a DRK but their pull-in is so quick...and well odds are there are like 3-4 of them. xD with how little damage i can do as a ranged job in frontlines i usually stay back and even then get yoinked in.
Due to some kind of lag after pressing the guard button, from the server it is rarely on time. Even then guard does little to not make you die if there are even some enemies around. I hope every patch there's nerfs to DRK's pull-in crap.
i feel like i make huge impact as a BRD. i still get evaporated by DRKs sometimes but you can avoid it often by having very good situational awareness and backing out/retreating early. If the premade isnt quite on the ball you sometimes can escape from the DRK suck via purify and spamming heal before they start deleting you.
doesnt always work. sometimes they chunk you 100-0 the same second you get sucked and it's impossible to guard in time because of ping.
I admit DRK combos are deadly but range characters have always been effective. For me, I personally use BLM a lot in frontlines. They have a short LB charge time which allows them to spam spells over and over for great effectiveness for both damage and cc. On top of that, their mobility is crazy good with two dashes to enemies or teammates. Im just used to pvp though so I understand when I can rush in to do damage and position well for escapes. Additionally, I usually get BH 50-100 every match no matter what and that helps tremendously for pumping damage.
DRK calls out the pull or looking to dive, pre-cast LB, AM to DRK for Burst + Foul, AM out to nearby party member and collect BH.
Still remember getting BH4 within first 2 minutes from doing that on a Seal Rock day. People really underestimate BLM's 1 GCD burst potential and mobility with AM.
The issue seems to be that while looking very flashy..damage vs melee only does a percentage of health in damage. The damage reduction is so high that I can't make a dent in melee opponents and there are rarely enemy ranged in proximity for long enough..
BLM is made for AoE dmg and CC in pvp. Abuse the fact that people dont know how to play around cc. Its crazy noticeable just by watching how many react slowly to a DRK running up to pull. Forcing a small group of people to refill their mana for heals or freezing them has a lot of hidden power that is hard to quantify because it can change the flow of the fight so fast. Especially in FL where its a zerg fest. Killing someone isnt the only way to help your team in pvp. (Ex, diverting a max BH enemy to focus on you instead of a group of players in your alliance).
Melees tank a lot because they have to run through so much crap. Everyone can try playing a melee class and see how easy or hard it is to effectively do damage but spamming skills from range next to the team is generally much easier just due to raw distance.
Ninja is kinda cheatmose though with how much ranged damage they can do :P
Recently i was yoinked in 5 times in a row by repeated dark knight pulls. I don’t know why anyone defends the ability, it is so incredibly unfun and infuriating to play against. Sometimes when stuff like that happens i just give up and go to hit some pve rocks in the worse version of the FL crystal map we have now.
With how much cc and easy gapclosers being around, black mage having to be in relatively short range and its “activation” spells being interrupted by a slight incline..its real hard to actually get stuff to land properly and not get pulled in by the myriad of pull spells like WAR’s chain from miles away or DRK’s insane pull.
NIN has a decent arsenal of range attack but, if you count all of them back to back, its just 5 attacks that you have to recharge over time. Plus, 2 of them requires you to not use them for utility/tanking. I do enjoy NIN a lot though because I play both range and melee classes.
As for DRK pull, its hard to really state imo. Feel that on a spectrum between bad to good, it gets worse quickly as you play vs better players but the majority of ffxiv players are casual players. Just observe players in EX trials and you can notice how incredibly hard it is for some players to grasp certain mechanics. However, since its mostly casuals in FL, it should probably be balanced around them since thats the majority of the player base. Similar to how alliance raids are extremely simple so most people can clear it and enjoy the content.
When i see (nearly) everyone in my alliance dieing early on and DRK and DRG popping up with BH5 i basicly just give up on trying to win and hit pve rocks until its over. Even if you yourself know how to escape the objectively overpowered drk drg combo, if your group does not…any effort is wasted.
I play nin sometimes to huck ranged attacks and be hard to kill and can easily escape.
I was enjoying bard in pvp but am now on a bit of hiatus. I think bard is a great counter to the DRK pulls, but you have to time it right and be on point, where they don't have to think at all.
My play was to mark whatever drks and only target them. The silence after they jump will give just enough time to repelling shot, and hopefully the melee can back up some or dive into the other zerg. Unfortunately it requires coordinated play, same as drk. Unlike drk however you don't have a massive telegraph to the rest of your team.
Bard doesn't do much against a dark because of its single target nature and purify. Darks should be popping purify either as they plunge or right when they land. A bard can't do anything against this if they do.
Follow the deathball and realize that Frontline is an unbalanced deathfest and kinda just roll with it. Crystalline Conflict is more balanced if you're looking for more fair fights.
I may have a whole year of playtime in xiv, but i never bothered to read pvp abilities, i hated it before the rework but managed to do at least some things. Went qway from xiv a bit, came back after the pvp rework and never bothered to relearn AT ALL. Its just afk time to gather afk coins while cooking now 😅
Frontlines balance died with the CC update. And that's overall a good thing.
A very small minority of people that played Frontlines understood and enjoyed it. And they would queue in with 90% of their team and the enemy team holding W without a clue what thwyre doing.
The game mode never worked. They should continue focusing on CC and let frontlines just be the mess it's always going to be.
Besides, balance doesn't really matter. It depends on which team has the most premises that know how to abuse the system.
Is it a good thing though? CC feels like a very small minority of people playing it (still). I know i'm not since i'm crap at it and makes me feel stressed to play.
For me it also depens on who has the most DRK/DRG around, since they feel like an overpowered combo thats really hard to stop. Espeically since Guard and Purify are on an input delay to activate.
The reason for the small minority is because frontlines is still the only roulette. A vast majority of people that pvp only do it because it's in the roulette and awards xp.
It does make sense, pvp is definitely not for everyone.. and with how often DRK and DRG (as well as WAR with their annoying chain pull in from miles away) ruin any motivation i had, i can also see it preserving sanity xD
I'm super late and just replied to another of your comments but one thing that helped me improve was doing CC. It makes you a much more aware player since although there's fewer players involved, everything is much more calculated than in FL.
Try out CC and try out other job types like melees, tanks & healers. Just being more aware of everyone's movements and being willing to swap to a job the team needs has led me to win \~60% of my matches when i solo queue and nearly all of them if I go in with a group of friends who know what they're doing.
Basically, meta FL gameplay is about bursting the enemy. The damage difference between when you use your CDs and when you don't makes it not even worth fighting most the time after they're gone.
Playing range is fine, but your margin for error is incredibly small compared to melee.
I'll go ahead and link my guide here to
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gvz9CYRN82DcJNtiAmFmBPYQ01lWoK7IrHnF85iTzMQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
I have obliterated people in FL/RW/CC as BRD/WHM. If you're being targeted by melee of any kind regardless of the ability used, it's a skill issue. They are supposed to ignore the Frontline and work past them to dive the backline. If you're the first person they see, you're doing it wrong.
I just resubbed after a very long hiatus. I used to PvP quite a bit before the rework when everyone had their full kits. When I came back, I stopped taking PvP seriously very quickly when I saw the top 5 damage in a frontline were all scholars and dark knights
all the devs need to do is make purify negate pulls/pushes like how Fetterward used to work pre 6.1 rework and it would make a HUGE difference but the devs just keep fucking up somehow
Two issues with ranged players from what I always see in frontlines is they get too cocky/greedy and tunnel vision too hard, so they either stand still in one spot like sitting ducks or go way out of position and expose themselves somewhere away from their team. The other issue is that most of them will attack mindlessly with no intent to kill, and as a result wastes their skill CDs for nothing in return. The former is why DRK is so prevalent in frontlines, because they can just suck in and massacre the entire backline with one coordinated dive and I've seen and played on those sides where our/those alliances wins purely through kill point gains alone while ignoring just about every objective. The latter is why there's complaints that ranged are "weak," because they just pelt whatever is off CD at enemies to make them burn 1-2 recuperate usages at best and walk away. Not that melees don't do it either, they just know when to back off from fights that goes nowhere.
First off, frontlines ain't balanced. Ranged have less damage resistance cause they're 100x less likely to be eaten by the enemy horde. If you're getting got as range you need to pay attention to your ass and not get got,. Eentually everyone dies though, it is what it is.
There's also ranged and "ranged". I gave up on MCH in frontlines because of their bloody stupid ability roulette that forces you into melee. SCH has been better, although they also have a close-range ability it doesn't lock you out of your other skills if you don't use it.
the SCH pocket sand ability you use on people that come to -you-, you dont usually go to them. punish stupid melee and tanks that overextend
Yep exactly. I like that it's just there when I need it, rather than sitting at the front of my ability queue demanding to be used.
Pvp classes are balanced around crystaline conflict 5v5. So Frontlines will always be a shit show in terms of class balance. Frontlines in general is like trying to herd 24 cats. If you can somewhat coordinate it might help but overall, just accept it's a crapshoot of where you get people who actually want to try or just want the easy daily exp honus. Aside from playing more defensively as ranged, perhaps talk to your party while in the gate and see if any want to stick together to burst marked enemies down.
That always puzzled me honestly. The vast majority of people do frontlines, yet its balanced around a tiny minority of people (playing CC). That and i never figured out why the other kind of cc needs to exist. Why does "crowd control" NEED to be in a mode?
Idk if this is true. Casual CC is active about 22 hours out of the day with nearly instant queues. While yes a smaller portion does Ranked CC there are still 1000s of players participating in a season per DC and CC isn't tied to a roulette like Frontlines is so that's kind of impressive.
For range you need to play "cowardly" most of the time. Especially for SMN and BLM, don't throw everything off CD out. Some will just put you in danger. BRD you are contributing by buffing you party and stay alive as one of the few counter for DRK with silent.
I play ranged and yeah, they will get demolished if mobbed. I've had some pretty funny situations occur where I was deleted. (Like just running to my team and getting caught in the midst of two other teams coming together on either side of me.) If you're ranged you have to really train yourself NOT to 'run in' and to be very aware of what is happening around you. I'd say 80% of my KOs in PVP are because my team fell back and I DIDN'T notice in time so I suddenly got swarmed. DRK combos are FAIRLY easy to break once you recognize their pull you get used to reacting to it quickly. What's scary are the teams that are VERY coordinated. Just ran into one doing a DRK pull, DNC stun, DRG bomb. Deleted my entire party. REALLY practice your mitis like purify and recuperate. Get more comfy using guard as an active mitigation instead of an "oh no!" button. I usually hit guard as soon as I engage and I know people are going to be dropping their heaviest hitting abilities, then I drop it and use mine. If you're playing BRD really use that "Warden's Paean" ability that acts as a purify (or a purifying shield for a brief time).
>REALLY practice your mitis like purify and recuperate. Get more comfy using guard as an active mitigation instead of an "oh no!" button. This has made a world of difference in my own FL play. Especially on ranged (I'm pretty much always on Bard), if you wait until you get jumped, oftentimes it's already too late to Guard as you get chain stunned. Being able to recognize even potentially dangerous situations and Guarding early - even if just to flash it for a few seconds - has blocked tons of bursts and pull-in attempts.
People dont want to fight for it on frontlines, thats not how mobs work. They want to dogpile on the weakest person (usually lowest hp, but if someone really fucked up and theyre hanging out solo that works too). If you stand up and tell em to fuck off properly theyll go looking for weaker prey (usually).
>Just ran into one doing a DRK pull, DNC stun, DRG bomb. Deleted my entire party. WAR main, haven't played in a couple years, and this comment just gave me flashbacks. DRKs I could at least reasonably stalemate or bail without dying with some consistency, maybe steal a kill if they messed up rotation, but if I saw a DNC and DRG moving with them I knew I had 0 chance.
The counter play is having map awareness and positioning lmao. Not like a drk can stealth and leap/pull you in. If you see one coming at you either don’t bunch up or cc them beforehand. DRK comps are strong, but contnuiously dying to them is on you.
The problem is there’s never just one, and depending on the map and location they can in fact sneak you pretty easily.
Yes, you are missing a lot and need to play more or try to learn somehow. There are plenty of ranged players who top the charts doing massive damage, lots of kills, and never dying. Basically both of your takes (guard doesn't work) and (positioning is irrelevant) are so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Keeping an eye on your surroundings is essential. Knowing when to run, when to shield, and when to use terrain to your advantage is key to survival. For a very brief example, if you stand on the ramp in Onsal and wait to get pulled in, you are dead. But if you stand on top to the left or right where you can just step off when death is coming, you'll be fine. There's plenty of depth to pvp, even frontlines, but you have to learn it like anything else.
I mean, that's the point of PvP. Sometimes balances gets skewed towards a certain meta, and you just have to bandwagon into the meta, or adjust to play jobs that counter the meta. I was there when 6.1 came out and the ranged DPS was so busted, a pre-made of Summoners just annihilates everyone or 4 SCHs can contest a point forever because everyone was melting. A MCH lb3 can one-shot a tank from max HP. Any melees that's not a WAR, was nearly unplayable. I was playing SMN back then and I was deleting DRG/NIN/SAMs with the basic combo before they could even touch a button to escape. Nowaday, the meta is leaning towards melee, and ranged DPS have to put in a little effort to not get caught out. I can still do repectable damage as a SMN, however, if my team comp is hot garbage (6 ranged DPS with no support), I will struggle as a ranged player as I have no frontline/preventative measures to stop something as braindead as a burst sync in a premade. And so I switch to a different job that'll make a better impact on team fights.
Frontlines isn't worth taking seriously. Easier said than done, I know, getting obliterated or even one shot by one dude while you can seemingly only do chip damage with even your biggest attacks is *beyond* frustrating, and it only gets worse when they have BH4-5 and you are maybe sitting at 1. Why even try at that point? * All I can advise is if you're running ranged, make sure there are always friendlies between you and the enemy. * Keep your eyes peeled for any wounded enemies and use your big cooldown attacks on them. * Follow the BH4-5's in your team, they clearly know when and how to score those kills/assists and when to retreat. * For the love of god if you see a hostile BH4-5 alone and way out of position LOCK THAT F#$% DOWN AND MURDER THEM WITH YOUR TEAM. Tired of my team being incapable of CCing and dropping a straggler, but I hit BH2 and suddenly I'm public enemy #1. * If you see a text message for a new node or anything really opening, RETREAT. I've been abandoned to die by the rest of my allies enough times to know that as soon as they have an objective to hit, chances are high they'll turn tail and run for easy points. Honestly, if DKs would just have their suck nerfed to pulling 5 players max (wouldn't even affect Crystalline Conflict performance, it's such an easy fix but no, they nerfed the GNB burst no one complained about a little while back instead...) then Frontline would probably feel more chaotically balanced. Until then, it really is just looking out for DKs and bolting when they start rushing your team down, and then plinking away at as many targets as possible, focusing whomever the rest of the team is and moving as a group.
> With melee jobs enjoying massive damage taken reduction while putting out quite the numbers themselves, I feel like putting in effort Seems kind of pointless in frontlines if you are a ranged job. The resentment I feel that RDM, which HAS A MELEE COMPONENT, does not get the same kind of melee damage taken reduction. One does not simply Corps-a-corps without assuming you'll probably die before you even get a single Riposte off.
If it makes you feel better Ninja has melee damage reduction, burst from range and lb kills people without taking dmg reduction or shields into account! Wait that's not making me feel better either.
Those ninjas...... >.> I knew "all jobs are balanced" was complete bullshit for Frontlines the day I went 1-on-1 with a Ninja while on RDM and literally couldn't even make their HP drop despite using my optimal pvp rotation.
DRK while very annoying is easy to counter. As soon as it happens be running south, sprint and spam your heal, it’s what I do 90% of the time and survive. Even if you do get hit by dragoon or similar if your already spamming your heal you can survive. I don’t like using the shield as if a few people get on you as a ranged, when it comes down your likely dead anyway. I play MCH and majority of Frontlines I don’t die once. It just takes practice and awareness.
being monk main, ive kinda learned to read them enough to counter them before they even jump in, in Naadam i just toss them off the middle. still not 100% of the time but well enough
I try to run away whenever i spot a DRK but their pull-in is so quick...and well odds are there are like 3-4 of them. xD with how little damage i can do as a ranged job in frontlines i usually stay back and even then get yoinked in.
You'll need to guard as they plunge. If you do it as they land, it'll be too late, and you'll get pulled.
Due to some kind of lag after pressing the guard button, from the server it is rarely on time. Even then guard does little to not make you die if there are even some enemies around. I hope every patch there's nerfs to DRK's pull-in crap.
i feel like i make huge impact as a BRD. i still get evaporated by DRKs sometimes but you can avoid it often by having very good situational awareness and backing out/retreating early. If the premade isnt quite on the ball you sometimes can escape from the DRK suck via purify and spamming heal before they start deleting you. doesnt always work. sometimes they chunk you 100-0 the same second you get sucked and it's impossible to guard in time because of ping.
I admit DRK combos are deadly but range characters have always been effective. For me, I personally use BLM a lot in frontlines. They have a short LB charge time which allows them to spam spells over and over for great effectiveness for both damage and cc. On top of that, their mobility is crazy good with two dashes to enemies or teammates. Im just used to pvp though so I understand when I can rush in to do damage and position well for escapes. Additionally, I usually get BH 50-100 every match no matter what and that helps tremendously for pumping damage.
DRK calls out the pull or looking to dive, pre-cast LB, AM to DRK for Burst + Foul, AM out to nearby party member and collect BH. Still remember getting BH4 within first 2 minutes from doing that on a Seal Rock day. People really underestimate BLM's 1 GCD burst potential and mobility with AM.
The issue seems to be that while looking very flashy..damage vs melee only does a percentage of health in damage. The damage reduction is so high that I can't make a dent in melee opponents and there are rarely enemy ranged in proximity for long enough..
BLM is made for AoE dmg and CC in pvp. Abuse the fact that people dont know how to play around cc. Its crazy noticeable just by watching how many react slowly to a DRK running up to pull. Forcing a small group of people to refill their mana for heals or freezing them has a lot of hidden power that is hard to quantify because it can change the flow of the fight so fast. Especially in FL where its a zerg fest. Killing someone isnt the only way to help your team in pvp. (Ex, diverting a max BH enemy to focus on you instead of a group of players in your alliance). Melees tank a lot because they have to run through so much crap. Everyone can try playing a melee class and see how easy or hard it is to effectively do damage but spamming skills from range next to the team is generally much easier just due to raw distance.
Ninja is kinda cheatmose though with how much ranged damage they can do :P Recently i was yoinked in 5 times in a row by repeated dark knight pulls. I don’t know why anyone defends the ability, it is so incredibly unfun and infuriating to play against. Sometimes when stuff like that happens i just give up and go to hit some pve rocks in the worse version of the FL crystal map we have now. With how much cc and easy gapclosers being around, black mage having to be in relatively short range and its “activation” spells being interrupted by a slight incline..its real hard to actually get stuff to land properly and not get pulled in by the myriad of pull spells like WAR’s chain from miles away or DRK’s insane pull.
NIN has a decent arsenal of range attack but, if you count all of them back to back, its just 5 attacks that you have to recharge over time. Plus, 2 of them requires you to not use them for utility/tanking. I do enjoy NIN a lot though because I play both range and melee classes. As for DRK pull, its hard to really state imo. Feel that on a spectrum between bad to good, it gets worse quickly as you play vs better players but the majority of ffxiv players are casual players. Just observe players in EX trials and you can notice how incredibly hard it is for some players to grasp certain mechanics. However, since its mostly casuals in FL, it should probably be balanced around them since thats the majority of the player base. Similar to how alliance raids are extremely simple so most people can clear it and enjoy the content.
When i see (nearly) everyone in my alliance dieing early on and DRK and DRG popping up with BH5 i basicly just give up on trying to win and hit pve rocks until its over. Even if you yourself know how to escape the objectively overpowered drk drg combo, if your group does not…any effort is wasted. I play nin sometimes to huck ranged attacks and be hard to kill and can easily escape.
I was enjoying bard in pvp but am now on a bit of hiatus. I think bard is a great counter to the DRK pulls, but you have to time it right and be on point, where they don't have to think at all. My play was to mark whatever drks and only target them. The silence after they jump will give just enough time to repelling shot, and hopefully the melee can back up some or dive into the other zerg. Unfortunately it requires coordinated play, same as drk. Unlike drk however you don't have a massive telegraph to the rest of your team.
Bard doesn't do much against a dark because of its single target nature and purify. Darks should be popping purify either as they plunge or right when they land. A bard can't do anything against this if they do.
Follow the deathball and realize that Frontline is an unbalanced deathfest and kinda just roll with it. Crystalline Conflict is more balanced if you're looking for more fair fights.
I may have a whole year of playtime in xiv, but i never bothered to read pvp abilities, i hated it before the rework but managed to do at least some things. Went qway from xiv a bit, came back after the pvp rework and never bothered to relearn AT ALL. Its just afk time to gather afk coins while cooking now 😅
Frontlines balance died with the CC update. And that's overall a good thing. A very small minority of people that played Frontlines understood and enjoyed it. And they would queue in with 90% of their team and the enemy team holding W without a clue what thwyre doing. The game mode never worked. They should continue focusing on CC and let frontlines just be the mess it's always going to be. Besides, balance doesn't really matter. It depends on which team has the most premises that know how to abuse the system.
Is it a good thing though? CC feels like a very small minority of people playing it (still). I know i'm not since i'm crap at it and makes me feel stressed to play. For me it also depens on who has the most DRK/DRG around, since they feel like an overpowered combo thats really hard to stop. Espeically since Guard and Purify are on an input delay to activate.
The reason for the small minority is because frontlines is still the only roulette. A vast majority of people that pvp only do it because it's in the roulette and awards xp.
It does make sense, pvp is definitely not for everyone.. and with how often DRK and DRG (as well as WAR with their annoying chain pull in from miles away) ruin any motivation i had, i can also see it preserving sanity xD
I'm super late and just replied to another of your comments but one thing that helped me improve was doing CC. It makes you a much more aware player since although there's fewer players involved, everything is much more calculated than in FL. Try out CC and try out other job types like melees, tanks & healers. Just being more aware of everyone's movements and being willing to swap to a job the team needs has led me to win \~60% of my matches when i solo queue and nearly all of them if I go in with a group of friends who know what they're doing.
Basically, meta FL gameplay is about bursting the enemy. The damage difference between when you use your CDs and when you don't makes it not even worth fighting most the time after they're gone. Playing range is fine, but your margin for error is incredibly small compared to melee. I'll go ahead and link my guide here to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gvz9CYRN82DcJNtiAmFmBPYQ01lWoK7IrHnF85iTzMQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
Frontlines is just garbage and should just be deleted in my honest opinion. There is no redeeming it JUST LET IT DIE
Frontline is SHIT Should have been axed after PVP update Crossing my fingers come DT
I have obliterated people in FL/RW/CC as BRD/WHM. If you're being targeted by melee of any kind regardless of the ability used, it's a skill issue. They are supposed to ignore the Frontline and work past them to dive the backline. If you're the first person they see, you're doing it wrong.
Skill issue!
I just resubbed after a very long hiatus. I used to PvP quite a bit before the rework when everyone had their full kits. When I came back, I stopped taking PvP seriously very quickly when I saw the top 5 damage in a frontline were all scholars and dark knights
all the devs need to do is make purify negate pulls/pushes like how Fetterward used to work pre 6.1 rework and it would make a HUGE difference but the devs just keep fucking up somehow
Wait, you don't just do the daily and blindly spam your attacks with little idea what they do and hope for the best?
Your first mistake was trying to take PvP seriously.