Casters in FL?

[Esmoire]

Skilled casters are often the #1 damage dealer in FL right now, though good DRGs and BRDs are decent competition. What makes casters special is we have spammable ranged AOE, where as other roles often requires proximity and risk for their AOE. This is the main feature of our entire role when it comes FL, and our primary contribution to a fight. Compared to melee our ability to score actual kills is a mixed bag with our best gimmick usually coming in the form of Phantom Dart burst sequences, but what we are doing is dealing thousands and thousands of damage with every GCD if we target clusters of players. Raw damage count alone is not inherently impressive, but what happens is we exhaust enemy resources: potions, CDs, heals, etc., forcing a retreat or outright getting people killed.

As a caster in FL, your main focus should be getting as much AOE damage out as possible, switching to ST for targeted pressure or to secure kills. Your main target: enemy ranged and healers, who often cluster in the backline, pressuring them to get them out of the fight. As you said, our chase is our biggest weakness. Ranged physical and melee have superior mobility, so let them handle pursuit of targets. As an aside: a single Red Mage can lock down up to four enemy players in rapid succession so it's not that chase is nonexistent, though you have to be reeeeaally careful with this since it's very easy to die without the 30% DR melee and tanks get.

Anyway, while all three casters have some great CC that can help lock things down, you kind of accept that we are much more finicky about who we can target versus our physical counterparts. You are going to carefully balance positioning and change targets often to secure as much damage as you can with every cast. Don't fuss too much over people getting out of range and just readjust.

Edit - Since you specified at the start: I play mostly SMN but I will play RDM if our alliance needs more lockdown and healing. For my credentials: I consistently perform highly for my alliance on Primal, so I'd like to think I know a thing or two about the role. I am not perfect but I think I am experienced enough with these two jobs in FL to speak for them. While I don't play BLM a lot of my best competition does and I have a good idea of what they are capable of. All three are amazing in their own ways.

[tinythinker]

Skilled casters are often the #1 damage dealer in FL right now, though good DRGs and BRDs are decent competition. What makes casters special is we have spammable ranged AOE, where as other roles often requires proximity and risk for their AOE. This is the #1 feature of our entire role when it comes FL, and our main contribution to a fight. Compared to melee our ability to score actual kills is a mixed bag, but what we are doing is dealing thousands and thousands of damage with every GCD if we target clusters of players. Raw damage count alone is not inherently impressive, but what happens is we exhaust enemy resources: potions, CDs, heals, etc., forcing a retreat or outright getting people killed.

As a caster in FL, your main focus should be getting as much AOE damage out as possible, switching to ST for targeted pressure or to secure kills. Your main target: enemy ranged and healers, who often cluster in the backline, pressuring them to get them out of the fight. As you said, our chase is our biggest weakness. Ranged physical and melee have superior mobility, so let them handle pursuit of targets. As an aside: a single Red Mage can lock down up to four enemy players in rapid succession, though you have to be reeeeaally careful with this since it's very easy to die without the 30% DR melee and tanks get.

Anyway, while Red Mage's CC and SMN's stun is incredible, all that aside you kind of accept that we are much more finicky about who we can target versus our physical counterparts. You are going to carefully balance positioning and change targets often to secure as much damage as you can with every cast.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I've found caster gameplay so far in Frontlines to be heavily situational. People in my groups who play BLM (which I'm leveling at the moment), for example, say Fire IVx3 -> Dart -> Xeno for single target but that can be hard to land standing in the back. Most of my casts get interrupted by targets moving out of range or dying, so I only feel slightly useful at mid in Onsal Hakkair when people clump together. Yet even then often there are no tanks or melee dps pushing in a little and giving cover for me to move in a bit, so many clumps are out of range. There is some clumping around other ovoos now and then, but again, if my GC is charging in most targets die or flee before I can finish casts. If they don't charge I have to take a big risk to ilm in to be in range of an enemy clump. During a single cast bar for AoE I can find that the allies next to me now a few yalms behind and I'm getting targeted.

The actual part of being useful (pounding clumps to scatter foes and break enemy lines) doesn't seem to happen often or last long. Being a glass cannon with cast times and a shield with a 45 second cooldown doesn't seem to match the reality of FL play as well as the other combat jobs, but maybe the other jobs just have a lower skill floor in PvP? Mostly I just hit people with Fire when I can't use AoE since it's instant cast and look for ways to try to do AoE on the occasions I can.

I tried SMN a couple of matched this past week as well after queuing in for something else, but it felt similar to what I describe above for BLM. I loved SMN in PvP near the start of Stormblood in those 8 vs 8 training Feast matches. Not the same at all now. So far for the BLM, I've done 11 matches, all tonight in a row, and it feels clunky with the fluidity and movement of the battlefield. Obviously I'm new but I'm not sure what else I can do besides the above.

[Esmoire]

Yeah I think experience with FL is going to be important in that after a few hundred games you develop a sort of sense for when you are drawing attention, when you need to move back, when you can play aggressive, etc. Like, for example, weaker players often panic when tanks are on them, and feel the need to attack them. However, a more experienced player will know that tanks are not inherently threatening and can be ignored, and the majority of their danger only comes if their CC can put you in jeopardy.

Spell casts are such that you are, as you've noted, stationary while doing them, but the payoff is also delayed. This means prediction is huge, and being able to read a lot of data quickly in advance is critical. You have to know when an enemy alliance is being distracted by your tanks and melee. You have to when an enemy formation is falling apart and you can start to move forward. You have to when your presence here will be enough to force them to retreat.

No matter what role you play, you have to be able to check your surroundings and map frequently to get an idea of when your teammates have your back or when you are overstaying your welcome. Casters and healers are privileged in that we can check the map or swerve our camera around while we cast; during a 2 sec period of a spell cast, you can be gathering information or changing to a new target. Just like any other role, you will have to know when you are subject to attack, and since you can't zone with as much fluidity as a ranged physical you'll have to combine slide casting with instants to reposition.

I'd say casters (especially RDM) and non-NIN melee are harder to play well than tanks, ranged physical, and healers, so if you find your general game sense in FL is lacking, it can be worth it to play something more forgiving until you get more games under your belt. I've noticed a lot of the people who consistently play mages and melee well are people who have played a lot of FL, where as I feel if our best players are, say, a tank or healer, their talents are not being utilized as well.

Also, there's plenty of situations to get value on AOE, as there's quite a bit of geometry to work with. The centre of Onsai Hakair is obvious, but other key features are:

• Bridges
• The easiest point of reaching elevation
• Corners
• Near nodes
• Any time a team pursues another, as people will inherently take the path that will most quickly get them in range of a target

I would say on average my AOEs get at least 3 targets. Of course, with good geometry, much more, though that should be the minimum you are looking at. A well-placed Painflare on 5+ players can realistically be the deciding factor for a node, and there is a huge component of patience in knowing when the time is right.

[tinythinker]

I'd say casters (especially RDM) and non-NIN melee are harder to play well than tanks, ranged physical, and healers, so if you find your general game sense in FL is lacking, it can be worth it to play something more forgiving until you get more games under your belt. I've noticed a lot of the people who consistently play mages and melee well are people who have played a lot of FL, where as I feel if our best players are, say, a tank or healer, their talents are not being utilized as well.

I've only played 517 FL matches (compared to the thousands some have played), but I think I can generally sense risk, which is why I stay so far back and am quick to flee as a caster. Yet it is a little different on casters. I just had a match where I got to be at mid for several minutes and was doing well, but bridges and other nodes often go quickly one way or another and then there are the loose open field skirmishes. Will keep practicing and looking for openings. Have more levels to do on BLM and then onto RDM. Thank you for your time and thoughtfulness. Your insights and those of my teammates have been very helpful in understanding how gameplay changes using magic ranged dps. Always appreciate it.

On tanks - they can kill me really easy either in a group battle or 1 v 1, and, as mentioned before, I don't see tanks and melee distract or harass people too often. Some do sure, but a lot of times it's more like when 5 year olds are playing sports and the coach tells them to play their positions but then they all run to the ball anyway So I just make do with what I get in terms of team composition, experience, priorities, etc. Patience is an issue for me because on other job roles it feels like I always have an opening ready to go, so I guess it makes casters feel slow by comparison. Will take time to acclimate.

Here are all my BLM matches, running from April 24th through the 26th:

April 24th
1-0-13
0-0-12
1-2-11
2-1-5
0-3-7
2-0-16 (really good group)
[forgot to check stats but something like 0-3-9]
1-5-11
1-4-10
0-1-12
0-3-13


April 25th
2-2-17 538712 (13th in total damage) <-- loss
1-2-15 229533 (19th) <-- loss
2-3-29 51656 (near or at bottom) <-- loss
0-2-2 34110 (not sure, really bad group) <-- loss
1-2-17 235010 (21st) <-- loss
2-0-8 95474 (35th) <-- loss
1-3-28 169674 (23rd) <-- loss
1-1-15 150987 (43rd) <-- loss
3-1-15 151880 (42nd) <-- win
1-1-12 64967 (36th) <-- loss
break
3-0-18 444610 (9th) <-- loss
2-2-4 92920 (51st) <-- loss
1-1-13 148967 (35th) <-- loss
2-2-11 135545 (39th) <-- win

April 26th
0-0-5 17916 (67th), but we dominated for a super quick win
5-0-34 368005 (17th) <-- win and got Battlehigh V (good group; before died too much to go beyond I or maybe II)
1-2-17 67695 [interrupted by glitch/crash] <-- win but missed part of match
2-3-21 122808 (34th) <-- win
3-1-24 128843 (38th) <-- win
0-1-16 103984 (43rd) <-- win
2-0-33 206981 (26th) <-- win
1-2-13 80169 (46th) <-- win
1-1-16 216685 (29th) <-- loss