Impressions / Questions from a New PVPer Post-2.15

[Wulfgang]

Heya,

I decided to give PVP a whirl this past weekend to fill the downtime associated with all meaningful PVE content being done for the week within the first two days. I have actually been having a lot of fun. I came in with i90 PVE BRD gear, thought I'd give 50 a shot, got absolutely raped several times, unplugged and read up on PVP progression here and elsewhere, and have since been solo queuing 30/40 matches. I'm rank 9 now and closing in on a hundred matches with a ~33% win rate roughly. I'm not sure if they've addressed bots or if they are just more uncommon at the lower queues; I've seen two obvious ones thus far (both on the other team). I bought one piece of i70 gear and am close to my second, but am starting to have second thoughts on BRD because the queue time for ranged DPS seems terrible since they bifurcated the DPS into ranged / non-ranged. Overall, I find the 30/40 bouts enjoyable and I think I'll continue the grind to R30. Almost none of my friends PVP though, so I was hoping to get some questions answered if possible. I have actually read around here / Reddit / elsewhere for as much info as I could, but I apologize for any stupid questions:

• JOB SELECTION: Gear takes a long time to get, so I'd like to focus on one job long-term here. I am BRD main, PLD sub, and can have a ~i80 WHM. I enjoy BRD and I think I play it well, but the queues just seem to be brutal. Average solo queue is 5-7 minutes in primetime but can spike to 13+ randomly. Outside primetime is a disaster; I think I was queued for like 45 minutes this morning. Is PLD feasible long-term? Spirits / Bash offer some decent utility and Cover, while tough to manage, is nice as well, but PLDs just seem to be outclassed by MRD/WAR. I could give WHM a spin, but healer definitely seems to have the sharpest learning curve. TLDR: Is it worth changing jobs to shorten queue times? Or is the difference not that big? It seems melee DPS is the best solo queue option as most groups run healer/tank/ranged, but I don't have a melee at all.

• DUO vs. SOLO QUEUE: 1) I play with a friend sometimes who is a solid i70 PVP BRD; I go PLD in this case. We seem to get through the queue much faster that way, but I haven't been able to isolate exactly why. Does queuing as a duo expedite the process for anyone else? I'll queue solo PLD tonight for a while and see how it goes. 2) You get the same bonus for solo queue as duo queue right? I believe so given the patch notes, but someone said in another thread here ("PvP in this game will not succeed with its current model.") that duo is much slower (the only other variable would be queue time, which seems faster duo).

• CAPPED GEAR SELECTION: Given I'm going to be doing 30/40 for a long time yet, I'd like to gear out as best I can, but I seem to have trouble figuring out ideal gear with the sync system. Someone in another thread here mentioned doing LV 40 leves for the i43 Aetherial weapon. Do items such as the ones listed below provide greater stats than the i90 PVE equivalents? Also do they drop from any LV 40 battle leve? I can't seem to find drop information on XIVDB, but I assume it's any leve.

http://xivdb.com/?item/1933/Aetheria...lt-Cavalry-Bow
http://xivdb.com/?item/3173/Aetherial-Ranger%27s-Tunic

• LV 50 BOUTS: I try to be a friendly player in this game and I hate dragging a group down. When can I begin to do this while participating in a meaningful way? My thought was to give it another shot once I picked up my 4th i70 piece (head, body, legs, 1 other).

Think that's it for now; appreciate any feedback.

[Pentara]

pld can be strong but the vast majority of ppl playing pld are terrible, and that makes ppl think paladins are terrible. If you are worried about queue times the tank slot probably won't be a whole lot better than ranged dps since mrd is so strong there is a lot of them queueing.

you don't get the same bonus duo vs solo, duo is like a 20% bonus to xp and marks where solo is 100% bonus. As it is right now, solo is probably the fastest way to level and accrue marks.

in the 40/30 bracket morale doesn't work, neither do the materia slots so wearing the pvp gear here as opposed to pve gear actually puts you at a disadvantage because in pvp gear you will have secondary stats dedicated to morale (which is useless in 30-40) and not the other secondary stats (crit,det,etc.).

[Zabuza]

• LV 50 BOUTS: I try to be a friendly player in this game and I hate dragging a group down. When can I begin to do this while participating in a meaningful way? My thought was to give it another shot once I picked up my 4th i70 piece (head, body, legs, 1 other).

Think that's it for now; appreciate any feedback.

I'd say not until you're full i70 at least. Even then I'd say i90 is ideal anymore. Almost half the players in 50 queues are i90, least on my datacenter, and the gap between that and i70 is quite large.

[Pentara]

Almost half the players in 50 queues are i90

wrong wrong wrong. There's probably 15-20 rank 30's in our cluster, that is hardly half the pvp population queuing level 50

[Zabuza]

wrong wrong wrong. There's probably 15-20 rank 30's in our cluster, that is hardly half the pvp population queuing level 50

And? How do you explain over half the matches that I am in at 50s queue I'm with or against one or more i90s more than half of the time?

[Pentara]

And? How do you explain over half the matches that I am in at 50s queue I'm with or against one or more i90s more than half of the time?

having 1 i90 in your group is 25% of the group, if you were to say a quarter of the people queuing 50's pvp are rank 30 that would be closer to accurate.

[Sunako]

wrong wrong wrong. There's probably 15-20 rank 30's in our cluster, that is hardly half the pvp population queuing level 50

What if there is only 30 - 40 players total that play pvp XD

[Zabuza]

have 1 i90 in your group is 25% of the group, if you were to say a quarter of the people queuing 50's pvp are rank 30 that would be closer to accurate.

Ok, and all it takes is one i90 to decide the course of the game if they know what they are doing vs all i70 pugs. An i90 dps can instagib an i70 player if they know what they are doing. Similarly I had a game where I killed everyone except the healer in a game, he was i90, he was able to kite my i70 team around for like 4 minutes before we could finally kill him, since we weren't doing much damage per hit on him. Not to mention i90 MRDs 2 shotting people. It only takes one i90 to drastically impact what would've otherwise been a close match.

[Pentara]

What if there is only 30 - 40 players total that play pvp XD

There is more than that though! especially with 2.15 i've seen tons of new faces (and smashed them all.. jkjk)

[Pentara]

Ok, and all it takes is one i90 to decide the course of the game if they know what they are doing vs all i70 pugs. An i90 dps can instagib an i70 player if they know what they are doing. Similarly I had a game where I killed everyone except the healer in a game, he was i90, he was able to kite my i70 team around for like 4 minutes before we could finally kill him, since we weren't doing much damage per hit on him. It only takes one i90 to drastically impact what would've otherwise been a close match.

you said half the people playing 50's pvp are i90, i'm not argueing that i90 is stronger than those not i90. I'm just saying that half the people are def not i90.