Volcanic Heart is a bad map

[Gserpent]

The only reason I climbed was eventually figuring out that Bard is unplayably bad on Volcanic Heart. Straight not worth queuing when that map is up. Playing a class that outright doesn't work at close range on the close-range-only map was just not ever gonna work out.

The hazards are cool, it's the camera fuckery and the lack of any locations free of claustrophobia that sinks it. The other maps have terrain variation between sections, so some areas are difficult for ranged and some aren't, but Volcanic Heart is monotone phonebooth knifefights.

There's a ton of open space in the lanes between and after the checkpoints.

[Petite]

It's not like using LOS to your advantage is exclusive to Melees. Ranged jobs also can use cover to LOS the enemy team's Rangeds or even put overextending Melees in danger.

Also, VH is symmetrical and both teams have access to the same job roster. So yes, the map itself is balanced.

If you hate playing it on your main, you can pick up and learn an alt job you think plays better on it. If you can't be assed to adapt as best you can, you can take a break until the next rotation.

[Corbeau]

If you are in melee and someone ducks around a corner, you can move a similar distance they did to follow them and re-establish LoS. If you are at range, you have to cross the entire ranged distance in order to re-establish line of sight. Which is why the long lanes on VH don't matter: they're perforated on every side, which means you absolutely must close anyway because nobody is staying within those long lines.

This is much less of a problem if you're a non-Bard ranged class, but Bard specifically relies heavily on their filler and their filler takes a stiff damage penalty for being up close. It's also less of a problem if you're a burst class that can dump and not care that someone dodged around a corner - but Bard specifically favors sustained damage, not burst.

Part of why I picked up a melee class in pvp is specifically so I could feel reasonable queuing for pvp when VH is up. Map feels great on melee!

[Zachia]

This would be true if Square Enix didn't design everyone to be able to heal and defend themselves. With your heal, shield, and potion making you a semi healer regardless of Job, role, range or melee you don't need your team if its a 1v1. In a 1v1 situation melee will dominate around pillars compared to range. Plus we're forgetting about cast times, melee doesn't have any cast times, Range does. Also Limit Breaks outside of Mechanist needs line of sight to be fully effective. Have bahamut on the opposite side of the pillar? Won't get damaged from him. Have a dragoons aoe ult come down but you're on the opposite side of the pillar? Don't take no damage. Have a BLM use their big purple circle aoe to freeze or burn enemies? Won't work if you're behind a pillar. The only range LB / AoE that i know that ignores LOS is the Snipe from Mechanist, you just need to see them first and if they get behind the pillar as the cast time starts, its to late for them.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

(1) In a 1v1 situation melee will dominate around pillars compared to range. Plus we're forgetting about cast times, melee doesn't have any cast times, Range does.

(2) Also Limit Breaks outside of Mechanist needs line of sight to be fully effective. Have bahamut on the opposite side of the pillar? Won't get damaged from him.

(3) Have a dragoons aoe ult come down but you're on the opposite side of the pillar? Don't take no damage.

(4) Have a BLM use their big purple circle aoe to freeze or burn enemies? Won't work if you're behind a pillar. The only range LB / AoE that i know that ignores LOS is the Snipe from Machinist, you just need to see them first and if they get behind the pillar as the cast time starts, its to late for them.

(1) The problem here is you are citing a 1v1 situation in a 5v5 gamemode. Melee jobs are naturally going to be better at singling out targets, so what you need to do as a Ranged is to prevent a 1v1 vs a melee while also avoiding more line of sights from enemy players other than the melee. I can easily play around a melee on Bard or Machinist if they are the only one diving on me around a wall, Black Mage can start using Freeze stacks on them, Dancer has En Avant to zip around, Red Mage has backflips and other defensives to hold themselves a bit and Summoner has a lot of crowd control options. The only melee that is truly fearsome to end in a 1v1 in is a Monk, situationally a NIN with their Limit break ready.

(2) Bahamut can be placed cleverly since it is a ground-target attack, getting around LOS issues.

(3) That is an argument against melee abilties and in favour of the options Ranged players can use.

(4) Black Mage actually ignores line-of-sight checks with Superflare. The reason why the Machinist snipe "works" is because the snapshot is at the start of the ability, with the damage coming out with a 1.5s delay.

[Gserpent]

If you are in melee and someone ducks around a corner, you can move a similar distance they did to follow them and re-establish LoS. If you are at range, you have to cross the entire ranged distance in order to re-establish line of sight. Which is why the long lanes on VH don't matter: they're perforated on every side, which means you absolutely must close anyway because nobody is staying within those long lines.

This is much less of a problem if you're a non-Bard ranged class, but Bard specifically relies heavily on their filler and their filler takes a stiff damage penalty for being up close. It's also less of a problem if you're a burst class that can dump and not care that someone dodged around a corner - but Bard specifically favors sustained damage, not burst.

Part of why I picked up a melee class in pvp is specifically so I could feel reasonable queuing for pvp when VH is up. Map feels great on melee!

Stop being so melodramatic. Your shot going from 6k to 4k isn't really that big of a deal. BRD's primary damage comes from aligning their burst windows, not from pumping Powerful Shot into an enemy. Besides, if a melee chases you around a corner you can bind them in place with Repelling Shot, isolating them from their team while also putting yourself out of reach. You can then walk around a corner to prevent them from dashing to you, or you can silence them if your team is going to punish them.

Honestly, dude, I think you just don't know how to play BRD very well. Not as well as you believe you do, anyway. Melee are going to try to sit on ranged as much as possible. If you don't know how to handle that, then you have a lot of practice you need to be doing. Swapping to melee for VH is just sabotaging yourself. Instead of learning necessary and important skills, you're refusing to put yourself in a situation where you're required to learn. And as a result you're probably sabotaging your chances of winning on the other maps, because you never learned how to kite melee in the first place.

[Apeman]

Yes, it is. Again, just because one section of a map might favor some strategies over others, doesn't mean the map is unbalanced. There is more to a map than just mid. For example, checkpoints on palaistra disfavor ranged attackers because of the substantial amount of LOS near the checkpoint.

Yet you and others are acting as though Palaistra is the only balanced, proper map. Similarly, the mid section of Palaistra is wide open with absolutely no LOS blockers whatsoever, which heavily favors ranged. Yet, again, you hold that map up as being the only "good" map.

So which is it? Is it a garbage map that favors ranged and melee at the same time, or is it a great map that's better than the other two because it's well balanced?

I have never stated any of the above except for Volcanic Heart sucks for ranged which you then admitted to please read my posts.

[Apeman]

Stop being so melodramatic. Your shot going from 6k to 4k isn't really that big of a deal. BRD's primary damage comes from aligning their burst windows, not from pumping Powerful Shot into an enemy. Besides, if a melee chases you around a corner you can bind them in place with Repelling Shot, isolating them from their team while also putting yourself out of reach. You can then walk around a corner to prevent them from dashing to you, or you can silence them if your team is going to punish them.

Honestly, dude, I think you just don't know how to play BRD very well. Not as well as you believe you do, anyway. Melee are going to try to sit on ranged as much as possible. If you don't know how to handle that, then you have a lot of practice you need to be doing. Swapping to melee for VH is just sabotaging yourself. Instead of learning necessary and important skills, you're refusing to put yourself in a situation where you're required to learn. And as a result you're probably sabotaging your chances of winning on the other maps, because you never learned how to kite melee in the first place.

How is nerfing a brds main dps action by 2k potency not that big of a deal? Thats literally a third of its damage. I don't know how you can constantly address pvp from the highest tier calibur of play and then argue that losing large chunks of potency isn't that important.

[Gserpent]

I have never stated any of the above except for Volcanic Heart sucks for ranged which you then admitted to please read my posts.

Dude, can you please stop being so unnecessarily reductive? You're acting really stupid right now, but you and I both know you're not stupid. Just because a portion of a map might favor one style or role over another, doesn't mean the entire map does. I believe I wrote an entire post explaining this to you. Could you please go back and re-read that post instead of wasting everyone's time with comments like these?

How is nerfing a brds main dps action by 2k potency not that big of a deal? Thats literally a third of its damage. I don't know how you can constantly address pvp from the highest tier calibur of play and then argue that losing large chunks of potency isn't that important.

Filler DPS is just that - filler. BRD's primary damage comes from aligning their burst with a triple Empyrean, typically inside a silence so they can't heal immediately. And you'll have used Repelling Shot to gain necessary distance and lock down your target if you aren't already at range before you begin.

Like with so many other complaints and whines we see on these boards, this is just a PEBKAC issue. You're on Crystal - go talk to Drunkin Bonuts if you want to know how to be a good Bard. They aren't the only good Bard I've seen, but I've played dozens and dozens of games with and against them and I've never, ever seen them struggle to deal with melee... nor do they dodge VH or swap classes on VH.

[Ransu]

BRD damage comes from combining their apex arrow with empyrean and finishing them off with pitch perfect during the silence window. Their main attack is just filler to refill empyrean stacks.