2000 matches in and R30 - My thoughts

[Zydeko]

Just as a heads up I am primarily a caster DPS and so my view may be slightly biased. But this is how I feel how things are and I thought I would share accordingly. These are my thoughts after 2000 matches.

I will actually cover my thought on how melee is being handled first:

I would consider most melee DPS to be pretty spot on to where they need to be right now if not for a little room for improvement. There needs to be an easier way for melee to close in on casters outside of handing them an i-win root ability. With the way pvp mechanics work with interrupts this is just silly. My biggest problem, that I see from a caster observer, is that in order for most melee dps to start being viable is that they have to spend the time to farm action points to negate directional requirements in PVP. While "Behind" requirements are likely not an issue, because I spend 80% of my time running from melee, any requirement that requires a flank seems to me like it would be absurd. The only time I can see that being viable is when the target is crowd controlled in some fashion.

Paladin/Gladiator:
- A bit less useful DPS than a MRD/WAR (that said, I HAVE seen some really good dps by some PLDs but its few and far between)
- Please provide more damage abilities than what is currently provided. The current setup is to weak unless you can block - in which case you can't because no one really targets you. A way to adjust this would be to allow for Shield Swipe to be usable w/o blocking but at a reduced potency (160?) if an attack is not blocked prior to use. (Remember this would not mess up your combo rotation)
- Allow for provoke/flash abilities to actually work by forcing the encumbant to force target the attacker once under the effects of taunt. My suggestion for effect duration is 9/4.5/3. This would allow for proper "peeling" off targets which would be incredibly useful for tanks. Especially PLDS so they can actually make use of blocks

Marauder/War:
- Storm's Eye needs to be reduced to 20% and not stack with Miasma
- Holmgang needs to be fixed that if the target is moved out of placement of the HG that the Mar/War regains control. If the target is purified the WAR/MAR also regains control
- Beserk attack power buff needs to be adjusted to 30% and remove 5 second pacification
- Maim needs to be lowered to 10% extra damage

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Monk: (One of my normal partners is a monk, Shin Fayte, and DPS seems to be spot on with the utility they bring.)
- Some easier means to keep Greased Lightning available either via activated pvp ability (Enliven?) or some new cheezy low potency ranged attack similar to a distanced ki strike of some kind. I find it odd that any class would have to constantly jam one attack to keep up a buff to perform other dps. At least for pvp that seems like to much effort.
- New move: Ki Strike - Range 15y Radius 0y Recast 45s Potency 80 - Refreshes Monk ability Greased Lightning to full duration
- Dragon Kick should apply a 10% heavy (stackable with caster heavies) in addition to blunt damage resistance debuff.

Dragoon:
- Either Chaos Thrust or Plebotomize (butchered that spelling I'm sure) should have a heavy 10% (stacks with dps caster heavies only) added for the duration of the bleed.

Bard
- Remove ability for dots to interrupt casting
- Range check for distance to target needs to be re-evaluated for interrupting spells. The drop off point should be closer and for greater penalty at longer range.

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Summoner:

- Miasma needs to have the heavy / heal debuff knocked down to 20% and to NOT stack with Storm's Eye. Watching my healers heals go from ~1000 to 250 is a bit too much. - I can't take LongNu's spears in the behind for that long when I can't be healed more than most auto attacks.
- I do not agree Enkindle needs to be removed. Spur and Rouse need to just have their buffs lowered to not be 40% a piece, but maybe 40% total when both are active. Also Rouse needs to be FIXED as the pet can still be CC'd while the buff is active.
- Fester damage I will agree is a tad high. Knock potency down to 80 a dot and we'll talk.
- Miasma 2 needs to have the heal debuff component removed and heavy knocked to 20% (stacks with melee 10% heavy I mentioned before)
- Summoner pets should be allowed to be changed to "Obey" without having a target

My argument for the Fester nerf is for this, while I know its 3 times a minute, a BLM cannot be mobile and even attempt this amount of damage within that amount of time frame. While Flare can do some mega damage you can either swift cast it once or get interrupted trying to cast it standing still. SureCast is unreliable as chances are you'll be cc'd while using it. In addition you have to manage to get two or three Astral Fire stacks for it to be viable in the first place.

Black Mage: (The main focus for what I am going at is to increase the ability for a BLM to be mobile against a target or not be shut down completely by being poked with AA)
- Sleep remove initial duration to 18 seconds and add Sleep Resistance to work with 2nd/3rd application of the spell.
- Manawall should block ALL auto attack damage and absorb a barrier that nullifies two physical attack abilities. While available all CC driven from physical attacks is negated (stuns) and cannot be interrupted while casting.
- Manaward same CC immunity as above, but from magic based attacks
- Freeze is a joke compared to Tri-Disaster - Lower the cast time to 2.5 - Potency on this type of effect is irrelevant as thats not what it should be used for. Blizzard 2 is still a better choice in most scenarios!!
- Umbral Ice and Astral Fire should not be removable
- Lethargy should be on a 15 second cooldown. This move is pretty pathetic compared to miasma/miasma 2 of which both have no real recast timer, longer effects, stronger effeects, and longer duration.
- Blizzard III should have a 20% heavy (stacks with melee 10% but does not stack/overwrite blizzard 1 heavy effect below) ((An Ice spell with no heavy component? lame!))
- Blizzard I should have a 10% stackable heavy up to 30% (stacks with melee 10% and equalizes out with umbral ice 3)
- Aetherial Manipulation should be allowed when bound


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White Mage:
- Same sleep changes as above
- If Eos/Selene should be nerfed. So should regen/medica 2.

Scholar:
- Same miasma / miasma 2 changes as above
- Please do not touch SCH pets. They are easily killed / CC'd. The extra healing done by pets still doesn't compare to a regen/medica 2 spam party.
- SCH pets should allow to be changed to "Obey" without having a target
- SCH pet heal, Embrace, should be usable without Obey.

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CC Gripes:
- For some reason not every "bind" type spells seems to be treated the same. In some instances when I am bound I cannot cast spells on targets that I am facing while bound yet for others I can.
- I do not agree sleep needs any major nerf short of a fix of the 2nd/3rd application of the spell to not be affected by resists. The initial application of sleep should be dropped to 18 seconds instead of 30. Having a good healer and keeping your team spread out against BLMs can avoid most problems with sleep.
- There should not be any instance where heavy is more than 40% - This would allow for melee dps to sprint and still maintain viable distance to casters
- Stuns are fine - do not touch
- Blind could use a slight buff to be more viable in PvP.
- Provoke/Taunt needs some love. Force a target to only be able to focus a tank for 5 seconds perhaps.
- See previous comments in regards to Healing received debuff

Interrupted Casting:
- Please remove the ability for unaspected DD spells to interrupt casting. There are matches where all I do to lock down some healers is just initiate auto attack and spam ruin 2. This is slightly stupid and works in most cases.
- The check against bards needs to be re-evaluated to see what the % is for interrupting casts. This needs to be slightly lower than it is now based on range to the target. two bards pinging a caster with auto attack can shut down most casters.
- Auto Attack should not interrupt spells and only activated abilities should interrupt casting. I don't feel the need to have to explain this one

Please also either adjust the damage reduction of morale from other players or increase vitality as whole by about 20% across the board for pvp items. This would eliminate most over burst problems that exist today.

My only other laundry list item is for melee... Please remove the range limitations that once an attack is executed that they can miss due to a target simply moving out of range counting as being "line of sighted". I think this would fix most issues with the coveted, "Bunny Hop," that seems to fly around these forums.

Please just remember these are my opinion and everyone has a right to one. I am just sharing my experiences with 2000 matches under my belt. I have been an avid pvp'er since UO and these are issues I see could be easily adjusted. I do feel there is hope within the FF14 PVP community and it just needs a little love.

Also, please open the battle servers to be more broad or just simply have PvP work across all servers. Oh, and matchmaking, ladders, blah blah, all the stuff that will eventually get added in the future I'm sure anyhow.

BTW LongNu I know you are out there and will read this. <3 your team. Probably the most competitive I've come across. I tip my mage hat off to you guys.

[Trevalion]

<3 Shin (Longnu)

<3 Mirth

[Alhanelem]

- I do not agree Enkindle needs to be removed. Spur and Rouse need to just have their buffs lowered to not be 40% a piece, but maybe 40% total when both are active. Also Rouse needs to be FIXED as the pet can still be CC'd while the buff is active.

I don't know who was asking for this but asking for enkindle to be "removed" is the same as asking for hallowed ground or battle voice to be removed. These are signature moves for each job with a 5 minute cooldown. It can only likely be used once in a fight and doesn't need to be "removed" or nerfed, because without the status effect, it would be a garbage spell that would literally never be used since it's DoT doesn't count for Fester.

Agree with the miasma nerf, it's just really good and on top of that multiple ways of applying it. There's no way to argue that this isn't too good. Miasma and Miasma II should be nerfed equally, not one more than the other. heavy and heal -20%.

Fester damage is high but it's not always easy to get when you're playing with a smart party- People can remove your dots iwth purify in the heat of battle, making your Fester do nothing (and this happens a lot) and forcing you to reapply your dots, which can also be removed with esuna/leeches. No other job's primary source of damage can be healed off with status cures. It also has a long cooldown- longer than performing three 100 potency attacks would take, that is. reducing its potency by 20% would be too severe.

My argument for the Fester nerf is for this, while I know its 3 times a minute, a BLM cannot be mobile and even attempt this amount of damage within that amount of time frame.

BLM needs a buff. Sleep is the only reason people bring BLM to PvP. Most other DPS can perform a larger amount of damage in the amount of time Fester takes to cool down (ignoring the limitations of aetherflow even). BLM has only one spell they can really use when pressured and that one spell was nerfed in 2.1, so I think they need a bit of help.

[LongNu]

Hallo!

Good games to you and Trev. Always fun to compete. I've read your post and I pretty much see where you're coming from. Specifically going off the issues with melee, I'd like to say that I find it absurd that melee have no active snares. Weapon Throw is a joke and the reliance on that as a heavy effect is delusional. All melee need some sort of snare, mainly for the sake of latency checks.

Monks and DRGs get a snare and I guarantee you they will be doing much better and showing an active increase in overall player choices. PLD seems fine imho.

BLMs need to rely less on sleep and have more active attacks to make the class less flustering. I think WHM and SCH are honestly in a balanced spot. MRDs will need a tonedown as they are a bit over the top. As far as Summoners go. This topic has been beaten into the ground. Heck, even the Producer admits it. What more is there to say? The class needs a solid hand nerf.

[Jadi]

Most of these are fine but they need to take baby steps to preserve balance. You didn't actually list any system improvements at all and I think they may be more pressing than overall job changes.

[realistic1]

Great post Zydeko.

Unfortunately, I am not qualified to comment on many of the suggestions you mention for other classes but I wanted to say that I would not mind my sleep being dropped to 18 sec for first sleep with the diminishing stats remaining the same (other than resist) for subsequent castings as long as we had the other changes to balance. I agree with the other posters that suggest a change is needed with our spells/damage ability. I would even be willing to simply go back to pre 2.1 on scathe damage and settle for that.

[Zydeko]

Most of these are fine but they need to take baby steps to preserve balance. You didn't actually list any system improvements at all and I think they may be more pressing than overall job changes.

Jadi, the only reason I didn't talk much in the way of system improvements is because they have been beaten to death already by other posts. I didn't really need to bring them back up. SE is aware of the majority of lag issues, 90ks, bunny hops, and other issues most people seem to be experiencing. I unfortunately have to pay for a VPN just to even be able to play because anytime after 3pm I do nothing but have severe latency until around midnight when everyone logs off if I am not using one.

I don't see a lot of other system improvements that need to be had, to be honest. In short, melee need to be able to keep up with casters and casters need a way to get "control" melee to avoid being hit. Its not a hugely broken system, but one that needs to be tuned. My suggestions at balance aren't perfect, but just a means to compliment what is already available and could be worked with given the engine SE has to work with.

I don't feel any of the balance issues I've listed here are extreme by any means. Most of these are feedback that I've heard or experienced from other players or have dealt with first hand. I just really want to hear what other servers think and how it is we can work together to help SE improve PvP for everyone to enjoy.

As far as ranking up, xp, marks and all that. I do feel there needs to be a solid 30-40% increase across the board. Casuals will not pvp after they realize they need a rough 1450 wins just to get to max rank. It takes a very long time to get to max rank and not a lot of people are going to sit through the grind. I am a bit compulsive when it comes to achieving my goals and it was driving me nuts to get to R30. Now that I am there its much more fun and enjoyable. This is the experience everyone should have and it shouldn't take nearly 100+ hours to do it. I could probably level 3-4 jobs to 50 before reaching R30 with this system in its current state!

I want a healthy and happy pvp community like everyone else!

[Zydeko]

Great post Zydeko.

Unfortunately, I am not qualified to comment on many of the suggestions you mention for other classes but I wanted to say that I would not mind my sleep being dropped to 18 sec for first sleep with the diminishing stats remaining the same (other than resist) for subsequent castings as long as we had the other changes to balance. I agree with the other posters that suggest a change is needed with our spells/damage ability. I would even be willing to simply go back to pre 2.1 on scathe damage and settle for that.

Yeah I do feel dropping Scathe to 100 potency was a bit too much when the only real ability BLMS have when mobile is Lethargy/Scathe. Scathe is basically the equivalent of an auto attack when mobile that has 1.2x the normal chance to crit for extra damage. Meanwhile, miasma 2, while does require you to be closer, is aoe, greater effect, better effects, and equal duration.

[Youmu]

Coming from a BLM, were in the strange position of being the worst overall DPS, while also fitting the best comp (BLM SMN WHM). SMN feels like the only DPS we can effectively work with, mostly due to the insane pressuring SMNs can do completely independently. When a heal is stressed because he's constantly trying to remove miasma and heal through the very high burst and sustainable damage from a SMN, and their stuns and DPS are more worried bout preventing SMN bursts and resurrects, we can get a little breathing room to get our casts off, and we end up being very effective in that situation.

Remove the SMN from the equation, and the opponents game plan changes from "stop the SMN" to "stop the BLM." Unfortunately, this normally works extremely well. Against a team that knows how to play vs sleeps, the moment sleep DRs are up, its essentially 3v4. I can pop surecast to sleep, bind or burst something, and all it takes is a silence to negate it. I can use equanimity, but coordinated teams will never let you finish your fire3 cast, stunning or silencing everytime cast gets half way through. Some will say just sleep whomever tries to interrupt, and that works... against baddies. Most tanks have learned to wait til they need to stun to use purify, and all it takes is one stun to give the healer a chance to purify, move out of range, and start singing you the song of his people.

In summation:
- damage output when free casting is fine, but
- very easy to lock down and prevent bursts
- only capable of full potential vs skilled opponents with a SMN
- defenseless when sleep DR is up

Proposed changes:
- DR on sleep reworked. Duration changed to 15 seconds (all types) no DR duration reduction, a target cannot be slept again for 30 seconds after an initial sleep, purify removes sleep resist buff. Explanation for this, is it allows sleep to be useful all match, without allowing consecutive sleeps. The 30 sec sleep resist buff is too powerful considering purify, so making purify remove it as well keeps it viable at match starts.
- Stack system for swiftcast. THM trait allows swiftcast to stack up to 3 stacks, each stack being one usage of swiftcast, gains one stack every 30 seconds. This gives us options for burst and defensive CCs while remaining mobile, something we sorely need. Also a nice PVE DPS increase, something we could use considering all other classes, BRD not included, are parsing a bit higher than us for single target fights. Unacceptable considering were intended to be the glass cannon class.

[mirth12]

I like your ideas on the smn nerf, I too agree that smn needs some changes, as far as nerfing fester as being the way of doing it I'm not sure, but I haven't seen any better options.

As far as making disease and storms path not stack, I wonder if that would be too much of a buff to healers. ATM I feel like unless u have both healing debuffs on a freecasting healer will almost always out heal the damage. ATM its already hard to burst a target if the SCH has it's lustrates available. No matter how much healing debuff is on them.

Sure you could say don't let a healer freecast and that's true you could put someone on it, but what about when everyone is attacking the healer. I don't want to see something like in WoW where you have the whole team beating on a resto druid knowing u wont kill it until it runs out of mana.

Overall I respect your opinions and agree with the idea of most of them. I'm interested to see how the game changes with the upcoming patch and hope that nothing gets too out of whack.

See you out there