Why being a caster or healer probably isn’t much fun for the average player.

[Hiruke]

ROLE (CASTER)

In PvE, casters mostly just dps. In PvP, casters become mostly about crowd control. No one is worried about BLM’s dps; they are concerned because of AoE Sleep and AoE Bind. The way you play caster in PvP couldn’t possibly be more different than how you play in PvE. Especially for BLM, this is such a drastic change from how the job usually plays that it’s difficult to imagine casual players would enjoy it very much.

ROLE (HEALER)

In PvE, healers mostly manage their MP and everyone else’s HP, as well as their enmity. In PvP, healers have to manage their MP, everyone’s HP, and, well, tank. Your average healer will already be turned off of PvP just because of being the priority target for everyone, so it would make sense to make PvP as inviting as possible to offset this, but instead we have…

SPELL INTERRUPTION

In PvP, ANY successful attack on a caster or healer will interrupt their spellcasting. No other job faces this kind of severe handicap. If you hit a physical dps, they don’t automatically miss. Especially in 1v1 situations, casters are basically useless in the face of ANY OTHER JOB assuming basic competency of all parties.

In “other MMOs”, instead of interrupting your spell entirely, the cast time would be extended, making your spell take longer to come out. I think this is a much more acceptable trade-off, since essentially any job can “stun lock” you simply by attacking you, and if you use abilities like Equanimity or Surecast to “guarantee” a cast, that’s when your opponent will use a stun or silence to stop your cast. A determined tank or physical dps can make absolutely sure that casters and healers aren’t doing ANYTHING that isn’t instant cast. They can even lock down a whole group of casters and/or healers by using AoE skills.

TARGETING

There are a few problems with targeting:

Any non-instant damage spell can be easily interrupted not only by attacking the caster or healer, but also by running in circles around them, so that their facing is “wrong” when the spell comes out. Between normal attacks, stuns, silences, and erratic movement, it’s quite challenging to land any spells at all on your opponent in anything close to a 1v1 situation, which is especially frustrating since physical dps generally do way more damage than casters to begin with.

Anyone you’re casting a spell on can simply run away. If you want to KO someone as a BLM, they are probably just going to run off. You might get 1-2 Fire Is out there before they move out of range, but since you can’t move and cast at the same time, anyone determined to get away from you is going to get away.

This applies to other jobs as well, but especially with something like 72 player Slaughter, it’s an absolute nightmare to target anyone in particular quickly and efficiently. It probably isn’t a good idea to highlight the flaws in the tab targeting system by introducing so many potential targets all at once. It would be better to give players more of a reason to spread out into manageable numbers.

STATIONARY CASTING

Unlike physical dps, casters can’t “chase” anyone. The only threat from casters comes from quick, concentrated attacks from multiple players. 3-4 BLMs with support from melee and tanks who get in the way of players who might try to attack the BLMs can cause heavy damage, whereas a single BRD can ruin the plans of dozens of casters and healers with a single Wide Volley.

It’s understandable that spells like Flare and Fire III can’t be cast while moving, but it’s really annoying that you can’t cast anything at all that isn’t instant while moving. This may have made sense in terms of PvE when casters were doing damage competitive to melee dps, but since melee dps have been greatly buffed in terms of damage and wildly outdamage casters even with lots of mechanics forcing movement (which honestly at this point punishes casters way more than melee), it makes less sense to restrict their casting so severely from a PvE standpoint and makes them very boring to play from a PvP standpoint (especially to casual players who are just going to want to lob spells at people, not stand still and get swarmed by everyone, then try to run off and get pulverized while being unable to really fight back effectively).

This was made even worse by Scathe being halved in damage just before PvP came out, limiting the effectiveness of BLM dps on the move for both PvE and PvP.

LIMIT BREAK (CASTER)

It’s understandable that you can no longer “bluff” a caster LB in PvP, but you lose LB gauge even if an enemy player interrupts the LB, which, honestly, is ridiculous. Casters have enough problems not being wailed on constantly as it is, without being punished even further by having their LB gauge destroyed because someone hit them before they could finish using LB.

SUMMARY

I can’t imagine the average casual players wants to be a striking dummy for all of the tanks and physical dps in large-scale PvP arenas, and casters are the one role that can’t dps very effectively without a coordinated effort from other players (you might get worried about a physical dps chasing you around by themselves, but you’re probably never going to be too concerned with a caster chasing you – chances are you’re just going to turn around and annihilate that caster).

On top of everything else, casters can also sustain the least damage out of everyone else, so it seems like the deck is severely stacked against the casual player who doesn’t have the hardcore PvP skills, communication, and/or support network to make playing caster in PvP an enjoyable experience.

Basically, PvP is designed around the idea that casters are insanely dangerous and you need to do everything possible to limit their power. While a group of coordinated casters can indeed cause a lot of problems for everyone, the power of the individual caster is limited so much that your average casual player probably feels pretty useless.

[zeopower6]

I like both, you just have to play them differently depending on party composition. (and hoping you have competent healers as a caster)

Melee and tank are probably the LEAST fun for anyone in Slaughter at least (compared to Secure where they are more useful IMO) since casters will AoE you or things next to you and make you go boom.

[aerialrave]

I would somewhat disagree about melees, although I do think Monks and Dragoons are the classes that got shafted in Frontlines. You see them coming, and they can be kited. All they really have going for them is their LB, which can be interrupted like anyone else. At least Ninjas have a blink strike and hide (the element of surprise). Straight up fighting, Ninja sucks just as much as Monks and Dragoons. But if you play Assassin style and pick on weak targets, they are quite effective, especially if you pick a spot like an enemy outpost or stairs.

As for tanks, there are quite a few people who play tanks really well in my data center and enjoy it too. Since they have naturally high HP and Defense, they get ignored quite often, which means they are pretty much free to do whatever they want without impunity. A lot of people who jumped on the Frontlines bandwagon never knew how powerful Holmgang was (is still) in Wolves' Den. Guess what? Holmgang is still really darn good in Frontlines too. And the notion that Paladins are just a Shield Bashing stun machine is total B.S. from people that do not know how to play the class in PvP. Cover works amazingly well on healers and Testudo on top of that is a really good skill as well.

Caster LB is still super powerful. It doesn't matter that it's been nerfed and can be interrupted, if you play correctly these aren't major issues and they still do massive damage, and stacking them still wipes entire parties. If you stand inconspicuously in a crowd (not hard in 72 man) it is impossible to tell where the LB is coming from, and only a fast reaction blanket AoE will stop it. At the end of the match I like to look through the stats, and in my data center, it is often Black Mages that have the most damage output and often the most kills too. "Isn't much fun"? That hardly seems the case here. In case you didn't realize, Foe Requiem does wonders for casters as well. And I don't know if the Bards are actually singing and doing their job properly, but it's no surprise that they're not in short supply as you always see them all over the place.

I will only agree that Healer is the least attractive role to play, mostly because it is a punching bag and the most difficult role and many times you get blamed for dying when nobody even bothers to help you. It also doesn't help that in my data center and Grand Company (Immortal Flames) there is a severe lack of people who even have a Level 50 healer to begin with.

[Kanexus]

Speaking from a healer pov ill have to say it only sucks at level 30 for wolves den. U have limited skills. At 40 its ok bc you have regen and stone skin. If u combine regen and swiftcast cure 2 u have more suviveability. Frontlines 8v8v8 is cool but 24v24v24 is too much for a healer

[CeveArthu]

This was made even worse by Scathe being halved in damage just before PvP came out, limiting the effectiveness of BLM dps on the move for both PvE and PvP.

I wasnt going to comment on this, but hold the phone on this part

Phantom dart + scathe deals between 1.3k and 2.4k damage, for an instant cast kiting spell thats far from limiting

[Urthdigger]

So, a few notes. First off, a caster does have options to get past the interrupt issues. For starters, there's no shame in running away. Sprint is essentially free for you, USE IT. Bards still present an issue, but hopefully your allies can help there.

Second, instant cast spells are awesome. Make good use of spells like aero, regen, lustrate, and the almighty swiftcast. Your PVP abilities are useful for this as well.

Third: Heavy. Blizzard, miasma, and stone will all reduce movement speed, allowing you to land spells on them, or even just let your allies tear into them like a pack of piranhas.

Those tools have helped me enjoy healer immensely.

[Honourlessichi]

I agree with the OP as far as casters goes,it is my experience playing one that we face many handicaps others do not seem too.Since i'm inexperienced with other classes,i'll say no more.

The targetting is a complete nightmare with controller btw,even with filters.Pretty much why i'm sticking with the more "simple" blm.

I do find it irritating when i'm lambasted by team mates for not putting out enough dps in frontlines,i guess they completely miss the fact that i've been sleeping the other 2 teams for long periods keeping much of their dps and heals down andf helping our healers under attack.Seriously,cc with blm imo is the best way to play it for most of the time(not all,but most)

Sidenote,i recognize healers sometimes get it hard,but i noticed if you ever dare criticize one even slightly for being under par you will get the whole team jumping to the healers defense lol,does not matter if they are not doing their job...but that's a moan for another thread.

[Lorielle]

People speak about breaking line of sight on Casters to interrupt spells. it's a effective tool, but usually doesn't help because casts only need about 7/8th of a cast bar before going out. Circling a mage? You can just constantly use "Face Target" That way they're just not running to your blind spot. I promise you Melee have the same annoying time keeping their combos going when it comes to chasing targets or just fighting in general. Nothing is more fun than having your animation go through but stopped abruptly because of one reason or another.

[Yumi_umi]

Stack some vit as healer Q up for secure or slaughter. Let team know ur baiting.
Provoke some dps by being like hey dps im over here! Im squishy and is killable! * works 8/10 times
They proceed to chase you then pop all ur defensive CD and tank while ur dps peel them off for u = kills.

Thats how u\\\\\\'d curb stomp ppl in WD and secure back then.
I\\\\\\'d also like to mention u could also attune to an LB and dodge it. ( i think they changed it not sure )

Almost every dps had the underdog status in each patch/ update.
- smns were op in WD, so they got nerfed with no cross class revive & no disease slow wtc
- melees had trouble hitting casters who sprint ( bunny hopping )
- blms were op till ppl cried forever sleeping so they nerfed it with diminishing returns even tho they r easily interrupted

- bards were just lol bards
- nin kinda was meh cuz they had some countered pvp skills

[CeveArthu]

- blms were op till ppl cried forever sleeping so they nerfed it with diminishing returns even tho they r easily interrupted

- bards were just lol bards

They didn't nerf BLMs with diminishing returns, they lowered the base time on stuns and sleeps across the board because it was getting ridiculous, diminishing returns has been in the game for a long time so you cant just perma stun/sleep

I've never seen someone call a bard a lolbard, they do great dps and insane burst