Things currently wrong with frontlines that the community would like to see fixed

[Caelum_Dragguell]

As far as SMN goes, once they blow their load they're pretty useless for the next minute or so- and a minute can be a very long time in Frontlines...
AST is more of a "noob trap" than OP, imo...now if we're talking Wolves' Den, then it's just ridiculous.

Most classes take a minute between being able to dish out burst damage. I play mainly DRG in PvP and once I'm out of jumps, BoTD, BfB, etc... it takes about a minute or two to get all of that back. The fact that SMN can play at a range with an AoE that deals 3k+ damage sometimes 5k makes it blatantly easy to abuse in a 72 man match. as far as soloing a SMN, as DRG that is really easy.
Don't get me started about AST, it's not a noob trap, the class is clearly better than the others especially when a GC isn't coordinated about sleeping it and focusing down other healers first.

[Kyani]

Don't get me started about AST, it's not a noob trap, the class is clearly better than the others especially when a GC isn't coordinated about sleeping it and focusing down other healers first.

Astrologian is not "clearly better" than the other two healers. Astrologian only really has one "speed" - a 603 potency instant cast on a single target on a single target. Past that, it can combine Synastry and Lightspeed to heal for 720 + 360, split between 2 targets, or just Synastry to heal for 603 + 131, with very little in the way of OGCD healing and almost no healing over time at all. After that? Astrologian doesn't really have much. Even with Lightspeed, Astrologian's AoE healing is by far the worst of the three, and their lack of OGCD healing makes it very easy to get ahead of them in a damage race.

The reason Ice calls it a noob trap (which is something I strongly agree with) is because you cannot kill an Astrologian by simply throwing bodies at it. Because they have reliable healing while moving, you need to either stun it or throw 900+ potency per GCD at it, both of which are difficult for new or bad players. If you do any of these things, though,

- Go around the Astrologian
- Split damage on multiple targets
- Use a Paladin to stunlock the Astrologian

AST folds far quicker than the other healers, because it lacks the tools to pay off healing debt the way SCH and WHM can.

Don't get me wrong, AST is still very powerful - but it's very single-focused and it's not actually "the best healer" at the things that win Seal Rock (triage burst healing and protecting highs/fevers out of party, for what it's worth); it's just a really obnoxious healer to fight against if you don't have good Paladins, and you can't stop your team's worst players from chasing one.

[Kyani]

Also you're really, really overestimating how much real damage a Summoner puts out - when you see a Summoner putting out 300k damage, easily half of that is completely wasted - it's healed up before it ever had a chance to create kill pressure. The best melee put out just as much damage as the best Summoners, because almost all of their damage works toward creating kills. And when a Summoner doesn't have Aetherflow? Their best nuke is RUIN II.

Let's put that into perspective for you (a Dragoon main): your fail case is trying to keep up Heavy Thrust and running through your normal combos, sans Blood of the Dragon.

Summoner's fail case is spamming a nuke that's 40 average potency worse than Scathe.

[lovelikewinter]

Most classes take a minute between being able to dish out burst damage. I play mainly DRG in PvP and once I'm out of jumps, BoTD, BfB, etc... it takes about a minute or two to get all of that back.

I main DRG for pve. The potency for any of their skills, regardless of being executed in a combo or not, is more powerful than Ruin II. Ruin II is severely underwhelming.



Keep in mind that dragoons also have instant aoe attacks as well DoT attacks that are instant, have 170 potency for the initial hit/30 dot potency, which is loads better than Ruin II. In just about every 1v1 instance where all off gcds are on cooldown, summoner will come out last.

The fact that SMN can play at a range with an AoE that deals 3k+ damage sometimes 5k makes it blatantly easy to abuse in a 72 man match. as far as soloing a SMN, as DRG that is really easy.

Summoners are glass cannons, thus any summoner with half a brain knows to stick with the group, and rightly so. Lucky for you there are plenty of stupid people that play Frontlines. If you've every played an 8v8v8 match and a team is mostly summoners, sure, the initial burst damage is there but after that, there lacks any killing power. Chances are the targets used purify once tridsaster hit.


The fact that DRG has ranged, off-gcd jumps (as well as one AOE jump with a potency of 250) every 1-2 minutes is insane, ridiculously more so if you're using power surge with Jump (50% additional damage added to a 200 potency attack). Dragoons are powerful and, if played right, pretty "op".

Don't get me started about AST, it's not a noob trap, the class is clearly better than the others especially when a GC isn't coordinated about sleeping it and focusing down other healers first.

I think Kyani did well with explaining this one. AST are great pocket healers, but they just lack the potency to be able to keep an entire party alive if they're the only heals in it.

I'll stand by what I said earlier, I've found the best way to defeat a class is to understand how it works, and take advantage of it. I used to think that summoners were so op, until I started playing one and understanding where the class falls short, maybe you should do the same.

[TheWaywardWind]

I pretty much agree with what has been stated so far regarding AST and SMN.


AST and SMN in their own right are pretty powerful. However, they crumble if you know how to actually fight against them. As others have stated, once you use your tri-disaster, you cannot reliably kill ANYTHING until it comes back up again, because usually you're being attacked far too much for you to be able to put all three DoTs back onto your target.

And if they purify before you get a chance to fester and your fester misses? You literally cannot kill anything because you won't have enough stacks to allow you to enter Dreadwyrm so that you can actually USE death flare.

Summoners ARE glass cannons; they're powerful under the right conditions but if you so much as actually ATTEMPT to counter them, they shatter almost instantly and have no hope of doing any real harm.

As far as AST goes, the only difference is that it can heal on the go. Scholar still has its MP free fairy that can heal even when you're being attacked, as well as a shit ton of instant casts. Sure Aspected Benefic is annoying, but all you need to do is stun lock the AST enough to do some damage and get a limit break off.

I've been killed plenty of times as an AST. Not because I don't know how to play, but because others know how to properly counter them so that they aren't harassing anyone consistently. AST may be the best healer out their right now but it still has some serious flaws.

[Cidel]

AST may be the best healer out their right now but...

I still agree with mostly everything you said about AST, SMN and SCH, but this one bit, I must disagree with.

Its hard to pick out a "best healer" due to all healers shining in different aspects in PvP- and then breaking it down further into different scenarios (4v4, 8v8, 72-man chaos, etc.) AST is simply the most potentially tankiest healer, and mobile healer, only slightly above SCH in both respects (which I daresay, has more features that make it a more likely candidate for a "best healer" in PvP). Kyani outlined exactly what makes AST look "broken" and a "noob trap;" the problem is that many players (specifically, DPS) seen AST shrug off assaults that may have worked against shield-less WHMs and cry foul when in reality healers are tanky period- its just that WHM is a hell of a lot squishier than the other 2(in return for larger healing potential)and a lot of players hold healers to this standard of kill-ability for whatever reason.

Personally, I love the stigma of players thinking it takes a full party to kill one AST; it just goes to show the quality of most FL players.

[Dimitrii]

The purpose Ruin II is that annoying blind effect anyway. It\\'s not as if summoner is short on insta cast high dmg abilities, making Ruin II comparable to melee weaponskills would be ridiculous.

I agree with the ast comment 100% though. They are far better at keeping themselves or one person alive as a pocket healer than they are at keeping a party up. They are actually pretty pathetic at party heals compared to whm and sch. I much prefer the other two heals as a melee in 72 mans. To the point where I usually have to switch to whm if I see only a ast in our party cause I know he won\\'t keep everyone alive with all the dots and aoe everywhere. Ast are better in 24 man and wolves den.

[lovelikewinter]

The purpose Ruin II is that annoying blind effect anyway. It\\'s not as if summoner is short on insta cast high dmg abilities, making Ruin II comparable to melee weaponskills would be ridiculous.

I agree with the ast comment 100% though. They are far better at keeping themselves or one person alive as a pocket healer than they are at keeping a party up. They are actually pretty pathetic at party heals compared to whm and sch. I much prefer the other two heals as a melee in 72 mans. To the point where I usually have to switch to whm if I see only a ast in our party cause I know he won\\'t keep everyone alive with all the dots and aoe everywhere. Ast are better in 24 man and wolves den.

I like how you've completely disregarded a large majority of my comment- and disregarded Kyani's post entirely.

Blind is seriously your biggest concern? Lol.

[TheWaywardWind]

Personally, I love the stigma of players thinking it takes a full party to kill one AST; it just goes to show the quality of most FL players.

The problem with your post is that healers are essentially tanks in Frontlines, so which ever one has the best ability to fulfill their specific role (an excellent tank and healer combo) is the one that would widely be considered the best. Scholar may get points for the fairy and various other abilities (E4E, virus), but too many of their skills require parties to be lined up perfectly for them to use, and the vast majority of them do not mitigate enough to make much of a difference. Succor is the exactly the same as Aspected Helios (with the exception of some crits that may happen), but the difference is that AST has a stronger Cure II which has no equivalent on Scholar, the ability to instant-shield (which, on average, is stronger than Adlo), and doesn't have to worry about micro-managing a fairy which runs all over the place.

Plus, AST can buff its healing at any time without sacrifice anything and synastry is great in PvP. Plus a balance on someone with battle fever is ridiculous. If all healers still had the ability to Stance Dance in PvP, I think we'd definitely see a similar instance in PvE where Scholar comes out on top in many instances.

However, you're removing its most vital assets as a class - it IS essentially half DPS, after all. With no cleric stance, what makes SCH shine in PvE is glaringly absent in PvP. It becomes a decent healer with more to handle. If Scholars still had their outstanding DPS capabilities I'd agree with the idea that it could hold the title, but alas, that was severed long ago.

All of this, too, is without even looking at the PvP skills offered (retrogradation OP af).

Besides that, the argument that "AST can't heal as well as the other two" simply isn't using it correctly.

As I stated before, AST is good but definitely not invincible. Anyone who believes it is "invincible" just really doesn't know how to counter an AST properly. It's largely the same for all healers, the difference with AST is that you can't just, as a DPS, spam weak GCD abilities and expect it to die like you can if you're fighting other melee DPS (which is what mostly people bitch about, anyway.)

All resources are finite; the difference is that AST has more in their toolkit for mobile healing and instant heals that make them outlast any Scholar and White Mage when being attacked. With AST, healing instantly is never a problem unless your MP runs out. Unless you have Lustrates or saved your Tetra/Bene, you're going to have a harder time. It's just the way it is.

[Dimitrii]

I like how you've completely disregarded a large majority of my comment

Have you ever used or played summoner? Because you are comparing it's damage to dragoon weaponskills for what purpose? Summoners use Ruin II on melee for the blind effect or to try and steal a kill on people that are pretty much dead already. Your whole Ruin II comment is pointless because it isn't a significant source of their dmg and is used more for utility purposes anyway. Every job has a cooldown period between bursts. This isn't exclusive to summoner. Besides you guys are completely ignoring the fact that the reason people hate on summoner is not because of their dmg (like kyani said most of their dmg is inflated garbage numbers) it's the THE RANGE AND MOBILITY of their burst. BURST plays a huge role in PVP. The way you word it makes it sound as if it's hard to heal through GCD weaponskills combos lol.