PVP PLD Cheese Problem

[Vatom]

Another one I wont jump into this but I do feel for the 10 PLD spartan push sounds cancerous
Without HG just Drill with HG its a pray it ends fast or CC to limit them sounds like atlot for a FL

[AnotherPerson]

The pld abuse is a damn travesty that should never have been enabled in the first place.
It's "easily countered" only if you have the specific jobs available that can do anything about it, who also manage to single them out amidst all the chaos, who also manage not to botch the counter.
It takes zero effort to use the guard abuse, it takes a massive amount of coordination and effort to counter it.

Pld cheese won't win the game on its own, but it sure helps that you get to nearly automatically cap any nodes you want because let's face it: Most teams are not able to properly deal with the pld cheese unless they are so massively superior in open combat that the pld and their cap buddy never even make it close to the node.
I've seen countless, countless matches where a team has started losing, then just turned 100% unga bunga pld abuse mode and turned the battle completely around because they resorted to doing nothing but cheese spam.

When an entire FL degenerates into "locate and disable paladins first, everything else secondary" then something isn't right. And what do I do if I'm playing, say, GNB, or SCH? If I see a paladin doing their thing, the literal only thing I can do is stand there like a dofus and watch them cap without having the ability to do anything about it. And don't come here with "just bring teammates who can counter it lol", it's a disingenuous argument that "somebody can do something about it some of the time so it's okay".
Guard needs one simple fix, and that fix is this: "Capping can still be interrupted while guarded." No need to remove the CC immunity, no need to remove the damage immunity. Just level the playing field so we don't see 15+ paladins every time we do Onsal.

I will have to say --- you're looking at your priorities wrong when you say "locate and disable paladins first, everything else secondary". It's always - Remove threats to establish more battle high and points to make it easier to capture objectives -- which in turn, give more points. Objectives matter, but you can't capture objectives if you keep losing by ignoring the big threats, and to counter the big threats easier, it's always imperative to develop Battle High as soon as you can. Removing threats, developing Battle High, and Capturing objectives are all equally important, but it depends on the situation at times where one goal may be more valuable than another.

Well, good news for you! I'm actually a PvP SCH player in Frontlines, and I can tell you a strategy that actually works for me, and a general strategy that I play for a lot of jobs in Frontlines. Though I have to explain the core concept of how PLD cheese works in the first place because every job can technically respond to the cheese, just in different ways.
You see, most people think PLD cheese is very simple when they see it happen. That's where they're wrong. There's a lot of conditions that must be met when using the cover cheese strategy, and that's where you can take advantage of the flaws.

To take advantage of the Guardian/Guard strategy, you must:
1. Have both Guardian and Guard off cooldown.
This alone makes it very easy to prevent the cheese from happening because there are many ways to counter the cover strategy once you know it's being used. You can either force the PLD to run off or burn their Guard asap, breaking their timing. Every job can take advantage here - burn the enemy's HP down faster. Do more DPS. Literally every job can counter this cheese to a certain degree, especially once you remember a PLD can only use Guard for a specific moment - so it means they will be eating the damage raw -- or doubled if the AoE hits their covered target. Yes, even SCH -- who can force a recovery HP reduction with Mummification - will be very strong here. Not to mention a GNB who already does a ridiculous amount of damage as a tank.

2. Have a willing party member cooperate with you. -- This alone makes the cheese much harder to execute because it requires communication with more than 1 party member. People actually need to talk beforehand to make sure both the PLD's cooldown on Guardian AND Guard is ready before charging in. Otherwise, they would go in and die. How many party members do you usually meet actually work together to synergize and organize a strategy? Don't think just because you're attacking the same target coincidentally, you're cooperating at the same level as a PLD and the person doing the capture. I'm talking about working together in such a manner where both players are fully aware what needs to be done and actually communicated. Most of the time, people don't talk, they just play, throw CC all at once, and hope for the best. The number of times a PLD can cover a player but the player who is not aware and runs out is startlingly high, especially in a casual mode like Frontlines. People are generally not even aware when a PLD covers them and doesn't take full advantage of it in most cases either. This can easily waste the effectiveness of a PLD's cover. Unsurprisingly, most people are mad because they -alone- cannot counter the cheese alone -- and that's normal. You have to fight against a coordination attack. Of course it's going to be more difficult. The enemy's strategy requires a lot more attention to details to execute. You can get to a similar level by marking an enemy to help direct your focus, but it really helps to communicate in chat so everyone is on the same page when they need to direct an attack.

3. Be within a specific range of each other. This party member has to know you have to be within a specific range and can't move too far away (10 yalms). If they are too far away, the effect gets cancelled.

4. Most importantly, this cheese requires both the party member and the tank to immediately run towards the capture point immediately after activating cover due to its duration (10 seconds). The most important thing here is that capturing an objective takes 5 seconds. Guard is only 5 seconds. As many people have pointed out before, if you're trying to capture a point, you're most likely going to be facing 48 other people trying to kill you. You have to time Guard in such a manner that you can take the bulk of the damage exactly during the time when the person you are covering is capturing. Otherwise, the PLD is going to take 48+ people's attacks raw for BOTH the covered person and yourself during Guardian. They'll instantly explode before the capture finishes. This creates a very small window for getting it right and a lot of room for mistakes since it means they're going to be open for attacks without fail until then.

So, this is what they need to do to prep the strategy. Where are its flaws and weaknesses?

Simple. You literally create them. The moment you get into skirmish, you don't have to particularly focus a PLD, you just have to continuously push the enemy away from the objective point. SCH does this very well by applying pressure to the entire enemy team by spreading DoTs and empowering their allies. You may not be able to kill PLD alone, but that's to be expected since you're fighting a tank. You have your entire team and possibly another enemy Grand company who should be helping you put pressure on enemies overall (unless they're somehow AFK and you're the only one attacking). If you zone off your enemies and make it more difficult for them to approach the crystal by damaging their entire party, then they may have to Guard early or back off -- effectively destroying the strategy they needed to make it work. Crowd Control is one way to create opportunities, but so is doing damage. You prevent any person from approaching the objective without taking a ton of damage to the face if they don't guard ahead of time, effectively killing off the instant Guardian to cover jump strategy. At that point, you force them to activate Guardian ahead of time and have to walk up unguarded to 48 enemies before capturing the objective. This proactive tactic isn't targeted to the PLD cheese alone. It's just an all-purpose strategy that simply works. You don't play into their strengths. You disable them before they get a chance to use it.

Ways you can force early Guard:
Literally all DPS skills. MCH Analyze Drill + Wildfire for focused burst, SCH AoE DoT + BLM AoE + Ninja AoE + Bard AoE, SMN LB + AoE Enkindle, DRG LB on enemy team, GNB AoE + LB, WHM LB. etc. This is all assuming you haven't already killed them with all this burst damage and the PLD is at least competent to guard or use recuperation, and haven't backed away to Elixir. You know those tanks and samurais who run up to you in the middle of Onsal and start whacking away at you like no tomorrow? Yeah, they're doing that to zone you off. It works from time to time as long as everyone else follows up to support them to ensure they don't die. It can effectively stall an entire squad running up, much less a PLD's partner.

Ways you can stagger Guardian:
The moment PLD uses Guardian, he is vulnerable to both CC on himself AND CC to the target he's covering. You may not be able to see where the PLD is, but if you see someone walking towards the objective point with a tether on them, it means a PLD has covered them. Then you can just focus on them to CC the PLD. Any CC that prevents the PLD from reacting will prevent him from guarding and even cause a delay on the opportune timing and will allow you to make them instantly take full damage/doubled damage. From Silence to Stun to Deep Freeze to MCH's shotgun knockback to MNK's Enlightenment to WHM's Miracle of Nature (unpurifiable btw) to DNC's Charm to RPR's Hysteria. Even Bind will work amazingly here because Bind directly prevents the PLD from moving. Due to the strict 10 yalm distance for cover to work, binding the PLD can effectively stagger the timing of Guardian when done right.

Ways you can break Guard:
If you noticed the PLD's tether and Guard too late for some reason, then only certain jobs can directly break the deadlock. DNC can directly charm all the opponents in range - allowing you & your GC to instantly burst the PLD who loses Guard under the skill's effect. RPR can immediately make all the enemies run away, directly breaking the capture point objective. MNK can directly break Guard. Ninja LB can work only if PLD is under 50% HP to remove guard and assassinate the PLD.

Failed to stop the cheese or succeeded, now what: You punish them. They had to guard to capture and protect an ally, so they no longer have guard. That means they will take all the damage raw. You directly kill them and start developing Battle High so you can put more pressure earlier on before the next strategy while fighting everyone else. This doesn't deviate from the original goal in Frontlines. You don't drop everything just to focus them, but you maintain the original goal of developing Battle High first, and this is a prime opportunity to get more Battle High to make things easier. The crux of the PLD cover strategy cannot be implemented if they keep getting zoned off, after all. And if you really cannot kill them when they don't have Guard, then there's no hope for you currently because your team somehow didn't do enough DPS even at their weakest moment - and in a location where they are very vulnerable. At that point, the gap in skill level between players is too high for you to do a thing about (because let's be real.. it means you guys lost a 2v24 or 2v48 encounter). If you cannot contest them like this, your other option is to not give them a chance by working together with the third Grand Company to launch a pincer attack on the opposing Grand Company (a very viable solution based on who is at the highest point value) to reduce their points and continue developing BH faster.

Basically, all the ways I listed is effective strategies to counter a PLD trying to cheese at different moments. Each job has their own way to respond towards it, and each job does it differently. If you're only responding when the PLD has everything setup the way they want it to go, you're already starting at a huge disadvantage by giving them the optimal setup. Don't start when it's already too late to do something. You have to be proactive to counter a strategy, but this applies to all encounters, from Frontlines to Crystalline Conflict. Mostly, it just boils down to skill issue and players not having the awareness to DPS & CC well, because the most obvious way of suppressing a PLD cheese is not letting them start it up in the first place by breaking their requirements via Guarding early.

I do want to note to you that: If a team really has to resort to using PLD cheese midway, it implies that they swapped their jobs. That means they lose Battle High. It should be easier for you to kill them the later they swap out jobs. If this is an issue, it means you guys were either dying too much that you don't have enough BH, your objective control isn't very strong (happens sometimes to RNG), or you played to their strengths rather than to their weaknesses. If I get BH5, it's very difficult for me to lose a fight with a team - and I usually solo queue in Frontlines. My team has to be literally AFK or beyond bad (which does happen sometimes after looking at damage charts). In which case, you really can't do anything about it with a player disparity as well. Most of the time though, you should be able to counter a PLD cheese, or at least put enough pressure to put them on a losing side once you start snowballing with BH5. You just need to know where to attack.

[Deveryn]

This is being covered extensively over here. FL balance changes are on the way. In the meantime, using excessive force on teams trying to cheese is the best solution.

[Saraide]

It definitely is a far stronger combo in onsal than in the other FL maps for obvious reasons. Is it too powerful however? Difficult to say. In a chaotic situation I think doing the cover capture is easier than the counterplay. I dont think having a buddy you queue up with and have on VC is that big of a hurdle. I assume tons of people queue up in groups of two or three. The strength of this combo does not lie in having two people walk up to a point where an entire enemy team stands. If the paladin combo manages to capture such a point the team guarding the point messed up majorly. The strength of this combo is when it's a symmetric teamfight right on top of a point. Then targeting the paladin is very difficult in my experience.

I havent played a lot of frontline but whenever I got onsal the team that won was also the one that managed to move as a group and won the fights.

[LaylaTsarra]

The pld abuse is a damn travesty that should never have been enabled in the first place.

Yes it is especially when people queue in with friends prepared to do this. The cover skill needs to be removed in my view. Will it probably not but that doesn't make the cheese a good thing.

[Teeko]

You can argue and type giant paragraphs until you are blue in the face on how to counter paladin cheesing in onsal but that doesn't mean it is a fun mechanic to play against.

When entire teams need to adjust to one specific strategy then something needs to be addressed. Onsal used to be fun, but now it's just a darn mess.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Cover cheese does give them an advantage but I've been in FL enough times against these covering PLDs and won against them plenty of times.. Mostly not because we managed to prevent the cheese 100% of time---we just proceed to kill their teammate more and more that they couldn't build up BHs and losing more points than gaining from dying. On the flipside our team also building up BHs, making it harder to kill us and easier for us to mow them down.

I’m also rather bloodthirsty so I always prefer violence lol. You don’t win by sitting on the sidelines; this is a common drawback I’m seeing from most people who rely on their group’s PLD cover cheese

snip

Solid advice, bravo. You've worded it far better than I could myself.

[Saraide]

You can argue and type giant paragraphs until you are blue in the face on how to counter paladin cheesing in onsal but that doesn't mean it is a fun mechanic to play against.

When entire teams need to adjust to one specific strategy then something needs to be addressed. Onsal used to be fun, but now it's just a darn mess.

Well parts of those big paragraphs tell us to just murder the enemy team harder while they are focused on capturing. So there exists fun possible counterplay.

[Teeko]

Well parts of those big paragraphs tell us to just murder the enemy team harder while they are focused on capturing. So there exists fun possible counterplay.

Have you even done any onsal recently? Have any of you? How is any of this a compelling argument for this strategy existing lmao

[Saraide]

Have you even done any onsal recently? Have any of you? How is any of this a compelling argument for this strategy existing lmao

What? If your team is better and manages to rake up a lot of kills then the paladin combo stops to matter because you will push them away from points before they can get close enough. Battlehigh tends to snowball pretty hard. You raise an absolutely valid point when you ask "is it fun". Arguably the only valid point. The counterplay to paladin combo is to deal more damage to the enemy team and kill their members. If your team cant do that then you're not in the better team.