PvP has gone majorly downhill since 2.1

[Sweetgrass]

Removal of Cleric Stance, free casting at all times, and ridiculous PvP skills like Push Back really shouldn't have been done.

Cleric Stance and interruptable casting made casters/healers really strong in Wolves' Den, if they were allowed to do so. It's currently impossible to kill a healer solo unless they're caught with no CDs/pvp skills available vs an opponent that has all of theirs, as they can spam heals very easily, with no skill required, and live.

This could be amended by reintroducing the "cancel on damage" effect to all casting, but also allowing certain CDs to give a Surecast-like effect. Dreadwyrm Trance, Ley Lines, Dissipation, Synastry, Hawk Eye, Presence of Mind, and other short buffs like those would be just fine to allow free casting for the duration, barring stuns/silences/knockbacks/sleeps. Casters/healers did just great in Wolves Den with full interrupts, this system should be adequate to balance them at Level 60.

part 1/2

[Sweetgrass]

part 2/2

Also, WARs are still stupid broken in PvP, as they have been forever. Please remove the ability to swap stances in PvP combat, as this would fix either one of their massive problems, ridiculously high burst damage, or ludicrously powerful self healing. They're the only relevant class in duels currently due to having access to both, and they're even worse now then they were about 3 years ago.

Also, I don't know why Push Back exists in a game with already overpowered tanks, it's just suicide to engage a tank that has it up. Removing tank movement for the duration of Push Back may solve this to a degree, as the 150/200 potency counterattacks are already insanely strong.

What does everyone else think? Was the casting system during 2.1 better or worse? Do you prefer the system now?

[Urthdigger]

I have to disagree. If you're judging healers SOLELY by their ability to survive in a 1v1 fight, then sure, they're a little OP. However, all PVP modes are team based objective games. Two or more opponents can make short work of a healer (damage from two DPS, or one DPS while a tank stunlocks them). Even if you're the only one attacking a healer, making them need to constantly heal themselves means they are NOT healing their teammates, allowing your own teammates to take them out. Back when spells were interrupted by any damage whatsoever, it basically meant only instant-cast spells were usable.

[Pence]

Shouldn't 1 healer v 1 DPS be equal? They can't kill you, you can't kill them. That's balanced. Go 2 DPS v 1 healer? If you don't kill the healer your DPS probably don't fully understand their skills in PVP. Maybe they're using a knock back as a DPS skill, as opposed to an interrupt? Maybe they didn't use that PVE useless skill they'd forgotten the moment they learnt it?

'Cancel on damage' was beyond daft - It completely overpowered SCH in PVP compared to WHM. I wouldn't mind them bringing Moral back, taking damage while casting = push back casting bar, Moral = less pushback.

There is a lot of issues with PVP but this is not one of them.

[Bartleby]

It sounds to me like you're basing your complaints about balance based on dueling or something because PvP feels way better today than it ever did in 2.1. Healers do not need cleric stance and it made SCH insanely OP similar to the degree it is in PvE content. The casting changes are very much welcomed as it helped even the field for casters that didn't have as many insta casts (BLM/WHM in comparison to SMN/SCH) and it meant that physical DPS couldn't just steamroll over casters with them being able to do little to nothing about it. Even now though, you can still interrupt a cast with just about any attack that crits and 2 physical dps can pretty easily lock down a caster giving physical dps an advantage.

WAR (and tanks in general) is still the 1v1 king but it's really not that big a deal in anything outside of dueling. WAR could probably use a slight nerf to their self heals but that's about it.

[Sweetgrass]

Back when spells were interrupted by any damage whatsoever, it basically meant only instant-cast spells were usable.

Yet, healers were rarely killed first. The best strat in 4v4 was to fool a healer about your real target, then kill before any healing/CC could be done, which depended a lot on your comp vs the enemy comp. Only at very low skill levels did everyone rushing healers actually work, because of things like Holy, Fluid Aura, Blizzard 2, etc

They can't kill you, you can't kill them. That's balanced.

Not really. Healers are the most valuable roles on the team. Back in 2.1, you could actually lose to a smart healer if you were alone because of Cleric Stance. This skill floor has been COMPLETELY removed when they disabled Cleric Stance/damage interrupts, and PvP is less interesting because of it. The individual doesn't matter, like timing skills to counter other skills, just group up and press buttons.

[Sweetgrass]

Healers do not need cleric stance and it made SCH insanely OP similar to the degree it is in PvE content. The casting changes are very much welcomed as it helped even the field for casters

Chaining Heavy through Miasma made SCH rough, yes, but was fixed quite early on by disabling the ability of Miasma 2 to cause Heavy. Also, casters are even more insane now than before, SMN's instant damage, BLM's being able to kill anyone in 2-3 Fire IVs, let alone the new healer skills. Casters used to act as snipers in 2.1, killing people VERY quickly if they were ignored, but the Lv 60 sentiment of running up to people for Deathflare obviously doesn't mesh with that very well.

WAR could probably use a slight nerf to their self heals but that's about it.

So disable stance swapping in PvP combat. WAR already has the best burst, DRK best chasing, PLD best CC, why allow them to have the best selfhealing as well?

[NoelNoel]

Your feeback sounds very melee dps influenced. Before you ask for nerfs or start talking about pvp going downhill since 2.1 I suggest you try out everything in pvp: melee, tank, healer, physical ranged and caster. Having played Wolves Den when it first came out it was absolutely ridiculous, the CC actually lasted the same duration as in PVE, and the name of the game was zerg the enemy healer before they zerg yours, which was awfully repetitive.
Caster is far from OP, BLM took a serious hit just recently and SMN is way too squishy, with dangerous burst conditions to be really competitive. I wonder if BLM will actually show in top of rankings anymore even on JP servers.
Going back to a spelll cancelling system would also mean that casters and healers would need the duration of their CC restored to at least 15 sec.
You complain not to be able to down a healer when you are solo, well I have some news for you: it is doable, even when they have full CDs, and that can be achieved by all DPS except BLM. I'm not gonna say it's not difficult or that it's something you can do steadily, but you seem to be completely oblivious that on top of needing to heal themselves a healer has at least 3 other people to heal. Nerf healers and we'll need to shorten matches to 4 mins because people will just die again and again.
I don't think WAR is that OP, most of the time they have good pressure for a few seconds, when focusing with another dps they easily kill something with berserk BUT that's nothing PLD can't do, by stunlocking a healer and stopping any of their heals going off. PLD is my favorite tank to be paired with, when they actually know what they are doing, their dps isn't great but the CC arsenal + their support makes for a much better tank imo.
Push Back is useful and much needed, first off magic is unaffected by it, secundo in stuff like Frontlines, as a DPS I expect my tanks to actually move into enemy lines with defensive cooldowns and push back so they can draw some attention and I can follow them, if I'm playing melee dps. Push back is nice paired with Bloodbath and when you have 4 stacks of medals it's one of those things that are useful to last a whole match.

[Sweetgrass]

Healers kept their entire team healed while dealing with chasers, and even killing people through DoTs/CC and a little team help. The system now is dumbed down and boring in comparison.

The CC change would be alright, clutch cleanses to counter 15s Sleeps was a decent skill barrier.

You must be playing with AWFUL healers if you can kill them 1v1, healers won 1v1s in 2.1, with fully interruptable casting, what they can do now is a joke.

WAR has been decried as OP for years now, starting with MRD, and even after that got nerfed, they're still the single strongest class in PvP. I don't know how you can argue this.

I agree with Push Back's usage in Feast, merely adding a Heavy effect to the caster would be sufficient, as Sprint + Push Back + tank defensive CDs are a bit ridiculous for kiting potential.

[Zojha]

There is a lot of issues with PVP but this is not one of them.

I personally consider the existence of dedicated healers (or more broadly, trinity design) among the biggest issues of PvP in this game, but not one that can realistically be rectified, so it's a moot point talking about it. It's not gonna change and consequently, people who don't like it (like me) are better off getting their PvP fix elsewhere.