Incoming Frontline pvp adjustment - What changes do you think necessary?

[JanVanding]

??? What precise coordination?

I just listed a bunch of ways you can counter it. Some are more tedious than others because it requires an opportunity and opening. Silencing / stunning / CCing ONE target to stop an LB or stagger them does not require ridiculous amount of coordination. Nor does it require a lot of coordination to tell your SGE to put up a LB to counter the incoming LBs. It just requires map awareness.

A SCH alone should NOT be able to handle 5+ LBs.

A SCH + AST should be able to handle LBs as long as the team recuperates properly.
A mix of the above will have the same effect to stop or weaken the coordinated LB and either break its coordination or weaken it considerably to the point it's not a "deathball" as you described it to be.
A full set of above? Overkill. A complete waste of resources.

It's far easier for the Deathball to execute their strategy than it is to counter it.

"Silence them"

You are in range of the WHM Stun now, the silence you threw won't have caught every WHM/SMN or they were not entirely dumb and purified immediately as they saw it coming.

"Guard"

2 frame wind up, the WHM LB stun is instant, tick rate in large scale will mess you up.

SCH LB

You're now an imp, goodbye shield effect.

The only true way to counter is

1. Run your own deathball
2. Pressure out their LBs in bad spots so they won't have them for objectives
3. Coordinate several LBs/CCs/etc

The issue is risk vs reward

SMN/WHM Deathball is low risk, high reward, thet will always have an easier time doing what they want to do versus a balanced team that will have to coordinate and likely use high risk plays to beat them.

To say "It's a skill issue" to me says "I don't understand balance"

Reason I didn't say BLM is because everyone knows they're just straight busted RN and having to use OP to counter OP just lends itself to how imbalanced Frontline is right now.

[AnotherPerson]

It's far easier for the Deathball to execute their strategy than it is to counter it.

"Silence them"

You are in range of the WHM Stun now, the silence you threw won't have caught every WHM/SMN or they were not entirely dumb and purified immediately as they saw it coming.

"Guard"

2 frame wind up, the WHM LB stun is instant, tick rate in large scale will mess you up.

SCH LB

You're now an imp, goodbye shield effect.

The only true way to counter is

1. Run your own deathball
2. Pressure out their LBs in bad spots so they won't have them for objectives
3. Coordinate several LBs/CCs/etc

The issue is risk vs reward

SMN/WHM Deathball is low risk, high reward, thet will always have an easier time doing what they want to do versus a balanced team that will have to coordinate and likely use high risk plays to beat them.

To say "It's a skill issue" to me says "I don't understand balance"

Reason I didn't say BLM is because everyone knows they're just straight busted RN and having to use OP to counter OP just lends itself to how imbalanced Frontline is right now.

BLM is overpowered right now, but even before 6.11a BLM has very powerful CC control. This is what made them so threatening. They are the job that create openings. They're just more overtuned now, but it's not as if you couldn't do that before. You just have to be a lot better to reach the skill ceiling of that job (which is good job design). Otherwise, Yoshi P wouldn't have been able to make it to Crystal tier if all Black mage had was damage.

I don't what to tell you if you don't think ahead about what to do after you walk in range of the enemy other than skill issue to be honest... I'm more confused why you're walking straight up to hit the enemy where the enemy WHM has direct vision of you and only you alone. I'm also confused why you are guarding after the enemy use their skill. Everyone who uses guard well knows you're supposed to proactively use it by anticipating attacks ahead of time. Using it later and getting CC'd after you got hit means you used Guard in a non-optimal timing, which lowers its effectiveness. This is where the finesse that separates good players and bad players for guarding. Heck, if the WHM hits you with the stun, even better. They just wasted their LB on one target, thereby making an opening for the rest of the alliance - assuming your party realizes this and can capitalize on it (again, skill issue).

And yes, Guard does block imp effect. I always intentionally bait the imp effect when I know they have a WHM when it's ideal for me. If you guarded as you got imped, you guarded way too late. Though as a SCH, you shouldn't even be walking that far up to get hit by WHM's Imp attack if you're targeting properly and staying farther away from the front to reinforce shields. Biolysis + Deployment Tactics has a huge range. Sounds like skill issue to me.

Just guard or purify if you know what to expect and then run back as your allies cover for you and go ahead. Think about what you're doing to get the best results. Sacrifice yourself if you have to just to create an opening if you think it's worth it. Deaths don't matter if your entire team wins out of it. Creating an opening means your team can also burst a player down if they are going to be caught off guard. This is the dynamic of PvP. Literally a skill issue (for your team or theirs) if they cannot react to the gameplay changes. If you want to just play PvP by using LBs, then there's no point in having different skills that can result in new strategies and new gameplay. Just because most people don't take advantage of it, doesn't mean PvP was designed poorly. Otherwise, why do people still play WAR or GNB when they can just all play the same job? The answer is: Fun, gameplay, strategy.

Also, you don't need to hit every enemy with CC either, just 1 target is enough. Another player can also contribute to disable the other SMNs. You're expecting a 1v5 kind of gameplay to disable SMN LBs, and that's not very feasible in a team-based game mode. Unless you're a SGE (LB prevent all damage outside of range, negating SMN entirely - but limited by range and charge time) or have a good number of SCH/AST/jobs to counter the number of Limit Breaks based on team comp, disabling one target is enough. It doesn't matter if you can't stop them entirely, all you have to do is weaken the effect of the LB, and - this is where a lot of jobs have their own ways to contribute to this. I think that's where you're not understanding that is the beauty and the dynamic of PvP gameplay.

And if you're not willing to take the gamble and risk to open in? If you're not willing to die? Then play around it (mitigation tactic to burn their Limit Breaks). If your team comp doesn't allow it though, then you should be looking or creating the opportunity to dive in because you'd otherwise lose to a more coordinated attack (and this isn't a game balance issue, it's team composition difference - and something people should be taking into account when fighting opposing teams to plan the right strategy -- just like how the standard SMN strategy is to use LB together because that's playing to their strength). Depending on the mode, you don't have to always capture the objective first, nor do you have to focus on killing the opposing team. Sometimes, delaying the enemy is enough.

I dunno what to tell you other than skill issue because this isn't a problem for me whenever I run into the 5+ SMN + WHM team comp, and I queue in solo majority of the time for Frontlines. I play with a bunch of different jobs and team comps that can execute this strategy in various ways. Sure, we won't always win because sometimes we're less coordinated but that just means the enemy team has better team synergy than our team. You can't do anything about having worse players who can't think of a strategy to counter it - as this is a casual mode. That's what Frontlines PvP is about. Skill difference.

Assuming the one true way to counter by "running your own deathball" because you can't execute the aforementioned strategies that are normally employed in Crystalline Conflict just means skill issue for being unable to execute a flexible strategy to suit your needs on the fly and need the simplest solution for your problem. It's only a [Balance] issue if there's no way to counter it - A.K.A. 6.11a Black mage being overtuned in both damage, defense, and CC that the only solution is to focus them down so they can't become a bigger threat.