"The Consequences of Reducing the Skill Gap" (A Video Relevant to the 4.0 Changes)

[Commander_Justitia]

where strategies are definitely needed in order to win because it's so simplified. You've got to have a good awareness and quick reactions to be able to compete

My toolkit was just so much bigger to deal with many situations. As Mnk I could steal all the buffs of tanks or range dps who just popped raging strikes, I could use a skill to increase the cast time of an enemy, I could pacify melees, I could use keen flurry, storms eye to evade and parry other melees while facetargeting them. I could help my healer with mantra and stuns, I could spam silence for a really long time to stop enemy healer or to stop enemy dps. I had to built up resistence down and keep dots up in order to be able to kill something, I couldnt just fall back and wait/hide and kill somebody in 3gcd like it is nowpossible. Being aggressive player paid out, now its often the opposite. What can I do now? I can't even run away if I don't use bolt. xD

I see way 2 many people dying in safeguard and tank lb or protect, which are all mitigations around 20%, but if really all players of your team attack at once you have like a 20k dmg spike in 2 GCD, 20% wont stop them from death. Strategies are still needed but your resources to counter them are limited and not very effective, I want my counters to be effective, that is what good awareness is about.

[RiyahArp]

No, BRD couldn't delete someone, they had an easily telegraphed burst which fell off in damage if you did something as simple as stay in melee range, and you couldn't cast if the target ran behind you. Alert was a joke, period; it had tiny range and a huge cooldown. BLM's original enochian timing was incredibly tight, and enochian had a long cooldown; thunder spam was better because thundercloud procs were instant and much higher damage and DOT than a bard's arrows. Monk may have had all those tools, but they could be shut down with a timed sleep or a bind, until they added fetter ward, and casters could just sprint from them, since they had to spend TP to sprint. And they still had positional damage requirements. Plus, in so much of HW you wound up ignoring virtually all of a job's core mechanics to make use of a tiny subset of abilities.

A lot of the issues we have now were just as present in 3.0. What would be worse would be the floor would be really low; you'd have average players be gimp just because all their pvp abilities were at max cooldown, and they would struggle to contribute at all. A good bard did decent burst damage, a bad one hit you for 300 points a hit with wanderers off and folded in seconds.

[Etrius]

I'm kinda late for the party since i took a break for a few days...

Lets try to remember that 4.X PvP "balancing" is done through Feast. Large scale battles are just broken without limiting the amount of roles per party. ("The Fold" 4-Healer party flashbacks)

The better player will still win the match, but not as easly as before, isnt it a good way to go on pvp design?

With the focus back on the Feast, your statement is wrong.
The best Healer could always win the match, followed by DPs and then Tanks in terms of responsibility.
It is a flawed design, you can have awesome Tanks and DPS, but the Healer alone can easily drag everyone down.

And by that design, people are still afraid of healing in the Feast or are criticized for being "bad" healers... which is again, bad for queues.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

No, BRD couldn't delete someone, they had an easily telegraphed burst which fell off in damage if you did something as simple as stay in melee range, and you couldn't cast if the target ran behind you. Alert was a joke, period; it had tiny range and a huge cooldown. BLM's original enochian timing was incredibly tight, and enochian had a long cooldown; thunder spam was better because thundercloud procs were instant and much higher damage and DOT than a bard's arrows. Monk may have had all those tools, but they could be shut down with a timed sleep or a bind, until they added fetter ward, and casters could just sprint from them, since they had to spend TP to sprint. And they still had positional damage requirements. Plus, in so much of HW you wound up ignoring virtually all of a job's core mechanics to make use of a tiny subset of abilities.

A lot of the issues we have now were just as present in 3.0. What would be worse would be the floor would be really low; you'd have average players be gimp just because all their pvp abilities were at max cooldown, and they would struggle to contribute at all. A good bard did decent burst damage, a bad one hit you for 300 points a hit with wanderers off and folded in seconds.

Not only was BRD burst strong, it STILL is even without Farshot. Won't 100-0 someone, but you can still easily hit them for half their HP with it. Alert/Detect wasn't all that useful in the Feast (though I watched many a NIN try to hide before me and would sprint out to their last location and blow Detect to expose them. Did it in Frontlines too), but careful use of it made for good counterstrategy. Yes, I know Enochian had tight timing. BLM was always a very technical job to play in PvP, but those who rose to the occasion were often huge threats if left unchecked.

And are you saying MNK - arguably the best melee back then - could be shut down. . .with well timed CC skills? You mean to tell me CC skills somehow were effective in countering even the strongest bursts back then? CC skills, which some jobs, MNK itself, are lacking entirely now? No way. . .

And yes, the difference was always knowing how and when to use your kit effectively. People still fail to do that with 9 buttons and less options. Doesn't mean 3.x wasn't better balanced than. . . this.

[Wintersandman]

I actually enjoy that my PLD is a little different in PVP than it is on PVE, whenever i am off of playing pve i jump to pvp and enjoy the game like a brand new.

In 2.x-3.x PLD played very differently in PvP than it did in PvE. Push Back...... anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ08erBoJnU

Should watch this for your enjoyment. Should actually watch all of his 3.x videos and then lets discuss how this 4.x system is so much better.

[Bahati]

I'm really unamused by the neutering of my skillset as a WHM. People are still crying about it in 4.0 when I can't do much but toss a stone and a timed protect. Back in ARR I was aggressively chasing down foes, popping presence of mind and Holying until they were no more. It's incredibly boring to play any mode now when I have nothing better to do than squeeze off a weak heal now and then for teammates.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I'm really unamused by the neutering of my skillset as a WHM. People are still crying about it in 4.0 when I can't do much but toss a stone and a timed protect. Back in ARR I was aggressively chasing down foes, popping presence of mind and Holying until they were no more. It's incredibly boring to play any mode now when I have nothing better to do than squeeze off a weak heal now and then for teammates.

It's almost like healers would be more fun if they had good offense options similar to Scholar and would be less about healing, shielding and more healing... right?

[AchaNoYumi]

Shall I go on?

P.S. The best part is being told how wrong you are about some of these, when you know you aren't.

I have an answer to your problem.

You do Frontlines.
Time to grow up in the PvP world and aim for top 100. Then you'll know what I mean.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

First off, you assume far too much. I've played both, including the Feast from the start. All but Season 4, which I protested for the chat restriction. Some of what I said in what you've quoted was in the Feast in context, though I didn't specify that. You also act as if playing well in Frontlines means nothing, or that player skill is somehow exclusive to the Feast, which you're also wrong about.

So! With that said, you can continue to play cheerleader for your little friend, but let me be quite blunt in saying this: your little talking point of Top 100, as if it's such a great measure of skill is laughable. I've seen some of the worst players make it into the Top 100 simply through attrition, and likewise some of the best I know aren't even represented. But you go on thinking that it proves you're good. The larger point being made here holds far more weight than your precious little bragging about top 100 in 9 button PvP that you and your little friend seem to bring up with every chance you get.

Maybe get over yourself, stop being a cheerleader, and review the main point of this thread, and you'll know what I mean.

[Zojha]

I've seen some of the worst players make it into the Top 100 simply through attrition [...]

Case in point: Every_single_season had players reaching the top 100 in spite of losing more often than they win, i.e. a less than 50% winrate over hundreds of games.

In any serious competition, those players would be below the point they started out at. You can pull that trick just after getting lucky with your low confidence matches, but not over hundreds of matches.