The Fields of Glory (Shatter)

[Eorzean_username]

Thank you Februs, as always your detailed answers help a lot for trying to sort out everything that's going on.

There's one aspect of Shatter in particular I'm still really struggling with as PLD:

Every time a central Ice shatters (especially a Large Ice), there's an awkward period where the 3 teams disengage and hover around the edges of the middle poking at each other. It feels very much like a mini-Slaughter match.

This is where I seem to get scolded the most harshly by frustrated teammates for under-performing. I would like to do better, but I'm not sure what to do, because the 3 teams strongly-prefer to keep their distance at the edges, rather than actually converging in the middle:

• If I try to pursue a marked enemy player — to DPS/Stunlock the target, or lock down nearby healers — I have to dive in to a giant ball of very angry Flames/Mael.
• If I dive in to a giant ball of very angry Flames/Mael, even with all my defensive CDs active, I get CC'd and blown up within ~20 seconds. Then I get scolded for dying (I think that's what "Thank you for feeding them" means).
• If I don't dive in to a giant ball of very angry Flames/Mael,then I get scolded for being "trash melee" that "doesn't engage".
• If I try to pick at the edges and leave myself a safe path of retreat or stay within range of my team, the target just easily slips back into their blob and gets healed/Esuna'd back to full and it's like I did nothing. (And I get scolded for being useless)

It feels like the middle becomes a giant blob of 24v24v24, mostly with the RDPS just picking at each other's fringes while the Healers on both sides keep everything neutral. Sometimes a Tank or Melee DPS runs up to my team's blob, gets beaten on, accomplishes nothing, and then either runs away or gets CC'd and blown up.

Targets keep getting marked, but if I break from my blob to do anything about the marks, I just end up overextended and quickly killed. If I don't break off, I spend the entire inter-Ice period jogging around waiting for an opportunity to engage that never comes (and then I'm scolded for not engaging).

I want to do better, stop frustrating my teammates, and contribute more in these situations, but I don't understand what I'm supposed to actually do as a Tank and/or mediocre MDPS, because I can't find a way to engage anything long enough to apply any of the tips given here.

In contrast, when two teams slam into each other inside a corridor while trying to travel between Ices, or my team cuts off another team's retreat, or one team gets really aggressive and voluntarily enters my team's territory — basically, any time the other team is mashed right into the middle of my own — then I get a lot done, die very little, rack up a lot of Assists, and generally apply a lot of the tips given here effectively.

It's just these mini-Slaughter situations in the middle that make me feel useless so far.