Please prevent pre-made parties from queueing into Frontline

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Originally Posted by Valence

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So perhaps indeed the problem is the combo and not premades.

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They're both problems, but not the only ones. The way battle high works is another issue that compounds the DRK+DRG premade team combo. Add an AST into the premade and it makes it even more obnoxiously unbalanced. All of these things on their own have some balance issues, but they're more tolerable when separate. When you start stacking them all together they quickly get unreasonable.

Yes, a solo queued DRK and DRG can end up on the same team and can be effective if they make an effort to coordinate. They still however, will never be as effective as two players who regularly play together and whom are communicating over voice chat to coordinate during a match.

And I have also in other threads agreed that the DRK+DRG combo is too potent in general, premade or not. It's just so, so much more obnoxious when it's a premade doing it, especially when they quickly rank up to BH5 and can easily wipe out entire team.

I don't know what the correct answer is to address the problem. But it's abundantly clear that certain job combinations, especially when in a premade group together, cause severe balance issues in Front Lines.

Good start would be removing the pull in part of DRK for FL and make it just an aoe bind, removes the 'can't act at all' part of the cc and reduces overall drg lb potency aswell, though drg by itself needs nerfs regardless, it's way out of whack compared to the other melee jobs in any mode.

Also while we at it, make bio do 0 damage if no longer in a 25-30y range of the scholar in FL to stop that crap aswell.

At least MCH has to get close for the dot and blm needs stacks for theirs, bio mechanic is just dumb how safe it is and how easy to spread it.

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Originally Posted by Xylira

They're both problems, but not the only ones. The way battle high works is another issue that compounds the DRK+DRG premade team combo. Add an AST into the premade and it makes it even more obnoxiously unbalanced. All of these things on their own have some balance issues, but they're more tolerable when separate. When you start stacking them all together they quickly get unreasonable.

Yes, a solo queued DRK and DRG can end up on the same team and can be effective if they make an effort to coordinate. They still however, will never be as effective as two players who regularly play together and whom are communicating over voice chat to coordinate during a match.

And I have also in other threads agreed that the DRK+DRG combo is too potent in general, premade or not. It's just so, so much more obnoxious when it's a premade doing it, especially when they quickly rank up to BH5 and can easily wipe out entire team.

I don't know what the correct answer is to address the problem. But it's abundantly clear that certain job combinations, especially when in a premade group together, cause severe balance issues in Front Lines.

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Again I don't understand at all how you can conflate premades with people getting BH. I get BH4-5 all the time solo, and I don't even bother trying to coordinate with randoms for it.

People are just lazy and dont want to take the extra effort to create a couple of macros for this specific combo. It's not exactly hard to make a macro "LB ready" for the DRGs, and a macro "Executing Salted Earth in 10s" for the DRK. You can even mark the DRK so that the DRGs know who to follow. During last expansion nobody was making macros for team sandwiches, I came up with a sandwich alert that I abused all the time and it started to be used by everybody over time. Not sure if they still do, probably not, haven't done many FLs this expansion.

The problem is the combo (and salted earth esp). Address this and the issue disappears.

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Originally Posted by Llynethil

Good start would be removing the pull in part of DRK for FL and make it just an aoe bind, removes the 'can't act at all' part of the cc and reduces overall drg lb potency aswell, though drg by itself needs nerfs regardless, it's way out of whack compared to the other melee jobs in any mode..

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I'd be wary about the holy combo wombo triple nerf. Double nerfs are already a risky slippery slope. Remove the pull in and see how it goes already, no need to nerf everything to the ground. Nerf further or change some things if the problem persists after.

DRG on its own is powerful, but it's also one of those jobs that tends to overperform at lower skill levels, stay strong at higher but especially because of its nasty burst more than the LB. If you get into tournaments or super high crystal rankings, well... the LB is.. really hard to use.

Saw the tournament finales? Barely 15 or 20% of DRG LB went through and dealt some manner of damage. They all had a DRG, but mostly for its burst and range.

I actually think drg damage is not the biggest problem considering not having cc it's a fair tradeoff, but that giant shield you get regardless after the lb is kinda rediculous and makes the job too safe honestly, especially since you can purify and backflip ontop of it after the lb to get out of reach again if needed.

Going all in and do high damage is fine, but being able to tank an enhanced drill and still have shield hp left after it is just bonkers ontop of the innate dr they get.

Talking about FL only btw which is where the main problem of these 2 job combo's lie.

Honestly don't know if drk ult should be nerfed in cc, it's already not the hottest job in cc and I think in the finals they did one game then dropped the drk strat all together, meanwhile that pala was pretty beast, like way outclassing the drk, could be player skill but I don't feel like drk in cc needs any nerfs.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Again I don't understand at all how you can conflate premades with people getting BH. I get BH4-5 all the time solo, and I don't even bother trying to coordinate with randoms for it.

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So do I, but it's still a whole lot easier to get and maintain battle high when you're moving together in a pack with a dedicated premade group communicating over voice chat. I really don't understand how it's so difficult for people to just admit that premades have an inherent advantage over those who aren't. I'm not saying they're guaranteed to win, they're still beholden to skill, but the whole is more effective than the sum of its parts.

But that still wasn't my point. It's that battle high compounds the other issues of premades, and of the DRK+DRG combo. It's easier for a DRK+DRG premade to get to BH5, and once they do they start crushing enemies even easier because of the damage multiplier. Mid to late game they will basically be effectively instantly killing any low battle high players due to sheer amount of burst damage the combo can achieve.

Each of those small advantages stacked together end up making things extremely unbalanced, is my point.

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Originally Posted by Valence

People are just lazy and dont want to take the extra effort to create a couple of macros for this specific combo. It's not exactly hard to make a macro "LB ready" for the DRGs, and a macro "Executing Salted Earth in 10s" for the DRK. You can even mark the DRK so that the DRGs know who to follow. During last expansion nobody was making macros for team sandwiches, I came up with a sandwich alert that I abused all the time and it started to be used by everybody over time. Not sure if they still do, probably not, haven't done many FLs this expansion.

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Yes, but it's still not as effective as a premade team coordinating over voice chat. A good DRK+DRG premade can reliably time Salted Earth with Skyshatter perfectly to the point where you don't even have time to react with guard, let alone do anything else because of the pull effect. And then realize you can also have one or two more DRG to double or triple up on Sky Shatters, or add an AST in for damage buffs that all stack together with salted earth.

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Originally Posted by Valence

The problem is the combo (and salted earth esp). Address this and the issue disappears.

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Yeah, probably. The pull on salted earth should probably just be removed. There's other effective combos that premades can and have abused, it used to be SMN stacking at the beginning of the PvP revamp. But DRK+DRG is the most blatantly unbalanced right now.

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Originally Posted by Xylira

So do I, but it's still a whole lot easier to get and maintain battle high when you're moving together in a pack with a dedicated premade group communicating over voice chat. I really don't understand how it's so difficult for people to just admit that premades have an inherent advantage over those who aren't. I'm not saying they're guaranteed to win, they're still beholden to skill, but the whole is more effective than the sum of its parts.

But that still wasn't my point. It's that battle high compounds the other issues of premades, and of the DRK+DRG combo. It's easier for a DRK+DRG premade to get to BH5, and once they do they start crushing enemies even easier because of the damage multiplier. Mid to late game they will basically be effectively instantly killing any low battle high players due to sheer amount of burst damage the combo can achieve.

Each of those small advantages stacked together end up making things extremely unbalanced, is my point.

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I'll probably chalk that up to different experiences. As I said above, to me it's like players complaining about gear when the problem first and foremost is a skill issue. All those premades are not made out of casual players. Do premades help coordinate and move around? Yes, but the weight of it to my eyes is very insignificant, and it seems disproportionate to the people on the receiving end because all they see is a premade pulling the combo. I'd be actually amused if some of them weren't premades btw, because the effect and result would still be the same. We tend to jump way too easily to conclusion, that's my point.

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Originally Posted by Xylira

Yes, but it's still not as effective as a premade team coordinating over voice chat. A good DRK+DRG premade can reliably time Salted Earth with Skyshatter perfectly to the point where you don't even have time to react with guard, let alone do anything else because of the pull effect. And then realize you can also have one or two more DRG to double or triple up on Sky Shatters, or add an AST in for damage buffs that all stack together with salted earth.

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If you don't have time to react with Guard when being pulled-in, I'm seriously questioning your reflexes at this point. I'm not even kidding, the pull in lasts for ages, and then you also should have the DRG LB telegraph moving in, and not just one of them. The whole FL clutter of people doesn't help visually evidently, but a single pull in like that should be a no brainer and you should be pressing guard immediately, even if it's wasted. Better safe than sorry, and FLs have enough downtime for guard to be back very fast after that anyway. Neither the pull in nor the bind prevents guarding, does it?

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Originally Posted by Xylira

Yeah, probably. The pull on salted earth should probably just be removed. There's other effective combos that premades can and have abused, it used to be SMN stacking at the beginning of the PvP revamp. But DRK+DRG is the most blatantly unbalanced right now.

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I'm pretty convinced people will go back to SMN stacking as soon as the combo stops being viable.

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Originally Posted by Xylira

So do I, but it's still a whole lot easier to get and maintain battle high when you're moving together in a pack with a dedicated premade group communicating over voice chat. I really don't understand how it's so difficult for people to just admit that premades have an inherent advantage over those who aren't. I'm not saying they're guaranteed to win, they're still beholden to skill, but the whole is more effective than the sum of its parts.

But that still wasn't my point. It's that battle high compounds the other issues of premades, and of the DRK+DRG combo. It's easier for a DRK+DRG premade to get to BH5, and once they do they start crushing enemies even easier because of the damage multiplier. Mid to late game they will basically be effectively instantly killing any low battle high players due to sheer amount of burst damage the combo can achieve.

Each of those small advantages stacked together end up making things extremely unbalanced, is my point.



Yes, but it's still not as effective as a premade team coordinating over voice chat. A good DRK+DRG premade can reliably time Salted Earth with Skyshatter perfectly to the point where you don't even have time to react with guard, let alone do anything else because of the pull effect. And then realize you can also have one or two more DRG to double or triple up on Sky Shatters, or add an AST in for damage buffs that all stack together with salted earth.



Yeah, probably. The pull on salted earth should probably just be removed. There's other effective combos that premades can and have abused, it used to be SMN stacking at the beginning of the PvP revamp. But DRK+DRG is the most blatantly unbalanced right now.

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You're assuming that every premade is playing on VC (or that you need VC to combo Skyshatter in Salted (or a premade to combo at all)).

I wouldn't be surprised if they just leave as is until the 7.0 Frontlines changes.

Others have said my point better, but pre-mades are not the reason why you are losing frontlines. It does help to have a coordinated party of 4 people, but 4 people can't carry 24 people to victory. Especially when FLs encourages you to stay together as a whole alliance over smaller groups. Removing the ability to queue pre-mades for FL, or any PvP mode at that, unironically makes the game worse for the majority and I don't understand why people genuinely think it's a good idea.

If they remove premade from FL then I won't do frontlines beyond daily roulettes anymore.

Been having fun with my premade friends queing at least up to 10 matches a day when we play together with whatever setups.