Spellcasting in PvP

[tehomegaking]

gotta love these threads popping up every few months, even better when the OP assures us they are a seasoned PVP'r (like that means something), yet they can't deal with the mechanics of this games pvp!

[Kirrund]

This is extremely unbalanced actually, as other classes I.E) Melee, bards, tanks, have no way, from a spell casters stand-point, to have their damage interrupted.

Just by being out of range you stop their damage completely. You have tons of ways to do that. Sprint too by the way is something that you get for free, but melee has to pay for it.

[Dimitrii]

I think spell casting is just fine as it is. I know several BLMs and SMNs that perform very well and they love it. I actually love playing SMN, but I'm usually WHM. This isn't WoW...you have to think and not just stand there face-rolling til HP goes to 0. Got a melee on you? Surecast > Blizz2, get a some distance, sleep it, rape it. Bard on you? Run behind the neareast wall/rock, Scathe and kite it to death. As you said, these methods don't always work because of CC immunity abilities...but casters have a big advantage because you can Swiftcast every minute, Surecast every 30 seconds while Fetter Ward can only be used every 2 minutes. Tempered Will has an even longer recast.

To be fair while these above tactics might work nice in theory they become extremely difficult to actually carry out and perform in practice. Its nowhere near as simple to kill a melee thats focusing you as blm as is implied above. Blizzard 2 takes years to cast so its only really available when you have surecast up (since its a waste to swiftcast it instead of sleep) and even that's not reliable since u run the huge risk of getting stunned and wasting the surecast. Regardless a melee can easily purify it off then pop fetter ward right after and dismantle said blm in extremely short order if they arent receiving close heal/pld cover support (Drg even gets a free ability to wipe away bind/heavy without needing to blow purify). While its true fetter ward can only be used every 2 minutes believe me when I say any melee can kill a blm in less time than it takes for the effect to wear off. Its also not as easy to utilize the terrain to avoid attacks when you are dealing with all the gap closing abilities melee (especially drg) has along with their ability to remove your sprint + heavy you. I'm not sure where you were going with the kite and scathe tactic against brd since brd can utilize that tactic way better than a blm can with attacks that are much stronger than scathe. And tanks isnt even really worth mentioning as no dps can really take on a tank straight up anyway. A single Blm can be a punching bag alone yes but when multiple blms gather together and cover for each other they are still one of the most lethal dps in pvp. The fact remains however that should they at any point be focused on by anyone in a group encounter they possess almost no offensive threat whatsover and there isnt much you can do to get around that. Its the price you pay for being so lethal when unmolested.

[Deelo]

My point is just because you are not able to play mages well in PVP, doesn't mean SE should change spell casting for *everyone* else. Other players learn how to get around this and do just fine.

[jlewiss]

Regardless of anything else we should be able to all agree that SE has been making pvp more difficult for spellcasters namely healers. Even if at some point they were willing to make this change based on their recent history it is not something they would do now. The melee backlash would be huge - which to be fair has been whats pushing yoshi & co in the direction of making spellcaster's lives more difficult. also my 2 cents on the issue is it's something i've just gotten used to, swift cast ->surecast->equanimity->surecast->attunement->surecast->die . it's our natural life progression

[Trypich]

Of course, no mention of Sure Cast, Swiftcast, Blizzard 2, using range/walls to your advantage, etc.

L2P.

This is a really condescending reply and doesn't uphold the spirit of good discussion.

OP has since edited to speak about these but to throw my 2 cents in: Surecast can be stunned or knock backed into uselessness, Blizzard 2 is hardly a realistic cast when under duress, and the obstacles on the battlefield aren't placed in a way where'd it be advantageous as a healer to use (if I dont have line of sight on my team, I can't heal. If I can't heal, I'm doing it wrong.)

Range is important but a good healer is mobile to catch up with out of bounds allies. Moreover, any enemy at any time can quickly move in on you.

I'd be interested to see an Equanimity buff, at the bare minimum.

[HitoYuudai]

I think spell casting is just fine as it is. I know several BLMs and SMNs that perform very well and they love it. I actually love playing SMN, but I'm usually WHM. This isn't WoW...you have to think and not just stand there face-rolling til HP goes to 0. Got a melee on you? Surecast > Blizz2, get a some distance, sleep it, rape it. Bard on you? Run behind the neareast wall/rock, Scathe and kite it to death. As you said, these methods don't always work because of CC immunity abilities...but casters have a big advantage because you can Swiftcast every minute, Surecast every 30 seconds while Fetter Ward can only be used every 2 minutes. Tempered Will has an even longer recast.

sounds good in theory, doesn't really work in reality though.

if you're trying to kite a bard as blm with scathe, get ready to respawn in base soon after.
the best way to encounter a bard in a 1v1 as blm surely is to face him like a man and hope for the best. you HAVE to use pretty much everything you have, lethargy+ resistance debuff+ RS+ equanimity (though you'll definetly lose some seconds of it because of silence and pushback, and if the bard is smart and binds you and run out of sight.. well, you lose even more of it) + swiftcast flare (which will be getting nerfed with 2.4 so it's not that powerfull anymore). that way I won a few 1v1 fights against bards, BUT if they were more experienced I'd have lost the fight without a question.
if the bard binds you and waits for your equanmity to run off... -> respawn

and binding melees... as soon as they pop purify or fetter ward -> respawn
or if you bind them and try to get a safe distance they just use a gap closer -> respawn
trying to sprint away from the melee, huh? they just use weapon throw, take your sprint off from you, give you heavy -> respawn
melees can use sprint + invigorate or enliven to gain tp back btw.

and the biggest issue in pvp = the delay.
one day I tried to escape from another blm because I was pretty much low on health and . while he was scathing me nonstop I couldn't because he was out of range for me, so I stood still, popped surecast and begun my sleep cast on him... scathe still interrupted the cast and surecast was eaten, yay.
same with running behind a wall or popping any defensive CDs like manaward,manawall, you'll still receive dmg for the next few seconds (and manawall is gone in an instant either way).
and trying to predict the enemy's movement and binding him with freeze... though he's clearly in the area of your freeze, he doesn't get bound because on his screen he's on a totally different position.

I don't want caster classes to be op and I think that the spell interruption on taking dmg is a good solution for that.
I'm not performing bad on the battlefield imo, but do I think that everything is good as it is right now? hell no
blm are such a weak class in pvp it's not even funny anymore.
sure, you can perform alot better with a good team and if the enemies kinda suck. BUT as a blm you just need one enemy on you and you become the most useless class for teamfights.
atleast make equanimity to do what it says and not getting your spells interrupted because of stuns/silence..

[Namasu]

My point is just because you are not able to play mages well in PVP, doesn't mean SE should change spell casting for *everyone* else. Other players learn how to get around this and do just fine.

You don't sound like you are even open to the idea that spellcasters have huge drawbacks that the OP or anyone in this thread suggested. When you say "Other players learn how to get around this and do just fine." you are just blindly ignoring the discussion without providing solid reasoning (kite and scathe??? what a joke and only work on newbies).

Like other players suggested in this thread, it's easy to think of all the amazing tricks you can do in theory, but in application it is rarely practical without a lot of outside factors to back you up.

Also, DPS are getting +30% self heal and swiftcast is getting nerfed so now all those sick moves that you think casters can do is even more of a joke.

[CeveArthu]

Like other players suggested in this thread, it's easy to think of all the amazing tricks you can do in theory, but in application it is rarely practical without a lot of outside factors to back you up.

I don't play the game anymore, but this is a pretty lame excuse for someone not practicing what they can and can't do with a job.

Most of the time you are against pretty terrible players where you can easily use pretty much all of these "amazing tricks" with ease and get kills/capture points/ heal people/bait multiple people into chasing you for 3+ mins (the latter two in the case of sch/whm)

I no longer play the game because of how little of a challenge the frontlines matches provided and wolves den being pretty much dead most of the time outside of scrim weekends, it was a joke that a non-cleric stance whm could roam every point and pretty much roll over most opposition (or just run away with almost no risk) simply because of how bad the enemy were most of the time

The 2.4 changes do mix it up a little, double holy bursts got a big damage nerf from swiftcast nerf so thats fair enough and the regen's no longer stacking will most likely make the node pileons much more fun instead of one team slowly dying because they dont understand what focusing is

I feel kinda sorry for the blm getting a big loss in damage from swiftcast, i guess its only good for blizzard II now for when you need to scathe kite

[Namasu]

I don't play the game anymore, but this is a pretty lame excuse for someone not practicing what they can and can't do with a job.

I know how easy it is to pull one over a newbie or people who doesn't know how to counter my class. My point is, and I probably should have stated it clearer, is that against well rounded players of similar skill level, tricks just won't cut it.