Slaughter... What do you think?

[Synnovus]

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As Atreus said, I run a Gilgamesh Frontlines premade that has been queuing exclusively Slaughter these past two weeks (though there are a few other teams aside from my own) and these are just the impressions we got playing the game.

Before I launch into my analysis of the current Slaughter dynamic I want to preface this with what I said earlier: the current interaction between Adrenaline and Battle High / Battle Fever is imbalanced. I think removing the Adrenaline generation from Limit Breaks would go a long way towards reducing the amount of meteor showers currently seen in Slaughter. I also believe that the objective timing and/or buffs should be tweaked in some fashion (current opinion as to exactly what is still pending). Having said that...

Cometeor and Raw Destruction really aren't that bad to deal with. If you spend 12 points into bonus Vitality (PvP Traits), equip a tanking accessory (more than one if you're feeling frisky), and use some 2-star food you can easily survive 2 Cometeors or a single Raw Destruction. A lot of the active PvPers on the Aether data center have caught onto this and it's rare for 2 coordinated Cometeors to wipe out a party. This brings the total to 3 Cometeors in order to successfully guarantee a kill on your targets. That is quite a lot of resources to dedicate to a single instance of damage. Currently there is zero repercussions to dropping this combo on 2 players are you're likely to get the majority of your Adrenaline bar back.

In the hypothetical situation where you don't get it back, a 3-Cometeor trade for 2 people starts to look a bit wasteful. Teams that spread apart pose a lot of difficult decision making because there are no obvious targets to pick. It makes landing multi-target crowd control more difficult and has less returns if it does succeed. An errant tank with a stun-happy trigger finger, a keen eyed melee with a well timed Shoulder Tackle / Overwhelm / Spineshatter Dive, a Bard with a well placed Blast Shot, or even a well timed counter-sleep from a BLM goes a long way to preventing a team wipe. You only have to interrupt 1 of 3 Cometeors to be successful. All of this is before you start to consider additional shielding, AoE heals, or defensive Limit Breaks from tanks and healers.

As you sort of touched on, defensive Limit Breaks brings me back to my initial problem with Alliances in general: you are not playing as a single 24-man team but rather 3 individual 8-man teams, this is true for both PvE and PvP. So for tweaking purposes it is easier to approach the 72-man version as either 3 sets of 8v8v8 or 2 sets of 12v12v12, the latter of which I think should be disregarded because of how sloppy Alliance interaction is. If you were to blanket Alliance-wide effects through the Limit Breaks you would probably be looking at a full system redesign.

In the end, I attribute a lot of the complaints about these abilities to be a result of a developing meta game. People are new to the game mode and they don't know what to look for. In times of panic the default reaction is to huddle together for safety making for crippling Cometeor play. Yes, this is Team Deathmatch but that does not mean your should be tunnel visioning on a single target because you want that kill. I spend a lot of my time calling and marking targets, setting up combos, or throwing out defensive crowd control when a dangerous situation arises.

Having said that, this all comes from the perspective of a person who is leading a group. I'll be the first to admit I don't know how solo queue games play out as I've never entered Slaughter with less than 2 other teammates and we usually have a very large impact on the games when we are present. If you have any additional insight, especially from a solo queue perspective, I'd love to hear it as it's not something I'm very familiar with. I mean, as an idea I don't think I've ever made a trek down to the Manor/Market/Temple to see the +Damage nodes more than once or twice.

[Hyrist]

In the end, I attribute a lot of the complaints about these abilities to be a result of a developing meta game. People are new to the game mode and they don't know what to look for. In times of panic the default reaction is to huddle together for safety making for crippling Cometeor play. Yes, this is Team Deathmatch but that does not mean your should be tunnel visioning on a single target because you want that kill. I spend a lot of my time calling and marking targets, setting up combos, or throwing out defensive crowd control when a dangerous situation arises.

Having said that, this all comes from the perspective of a person who is leading a group. I'll be the first to admit I don't know how solo queue games play out as I've never entered Slaughter with less than 2 other teammates and we usually have a very large impact on the games when we are present. If you have any additional insight, especially from a solo queue perspective, I'd love to hear it as it's not something I'm very familiar with. I mean, as an idea I don't think I've ever made a trek down to the Manor/Market/Temple to see the +Damage nodes more than once or twice.

Actually you and I are in complete agreement, especially in the bolded part. Cometeor only becomes a problem when it is stacked, as seperate entities ,theyre managable.

Solo queue has its benefits and its problems right now. In terms of queue times, those who are complaining about long queues, I can't duplicate it. A solo queue time for me hasn't exceeded 35 minutes as a solo tank in Frontlines. Most often much shorter than that.

More than anything, what is lax in solo-que is co-ordination. This may simply be a Maelstrom trait, but even bringing one friend from my FC into PvP I noticed a significant difference in performance of my full party. Helps that I also raid with this individual.Willing healers for Maelstrom is a premium and we often suffer third place finished due to not having any healer in one of our parties.

Limit Break wise, I was unaware that using LB contributed to Aderenline generation, then again I don't play a DPS of any sort so I wouldn't notice. If this is true, the removal of it should greatly balance its use across the board.

On objectives, each of the Alphas and I believe the Beta in the center are all worth 15 points a piece, and can sway that phase of the fight. It can easily sway back once the Interceptor comes out, but the team that capture the most of these objectives clinches the game. In games in which these objectives, including the side nodes are successfully controlled (with at least one side node captured) clinch the game before the timer expires. Games in which these nodes are more distributed wind up exhausting the timer or being close.

So it's not so much the buff but the point value that matters in these side nodes. However, to clinch two of them, you'd need 16 people to successfully co-ordinate and control a neutral objective on two fronts - while at the same time not sacrificing your presence in the middle. That requires thee at least semi-organized teams - not something you're going to accomplish in such a wide open mode. In trade, an organized group holding middle is going to be more sucessful over all because the teamwork is more succinct. Middle holds more point value overall than the sides, and if you can keep the other two teams on tilt, then you can mitigate the effect of the sides.

What would counter this and provide better incentives to divide the forces into their intended 3 8 man teams would be to have a second wave of side objectives of the same point value a bit before Interceptor spawns.

The reason for this is the Interceptor is powerful, and teams that are left isolated on the center trying to take it down will be weaker compared to the teams who leave to take the sides. What happens is the side fights, depending on how successful they are will overflow into the center fight. Fresh troops in large groups will pour into a weary battlefield and try to capitalize on the situation. Likewise, the team with more buffs or more points out of the two situation have already mitigated the effects of the additional points this center objective provides.

But that's just one idea. Right now I'm considering trying to start a Maelstrom LS on Balmung in an effort to organize their grouping effort together. However, from the sound of things it seems like premades are suffering from a longer queue time.