Simple changes that would tremendously help PvP

[Nav_Fae]

I just really hate Ninja's and Samurai in PvP. Moreso Ninjas. Seems like any good player that plays one is unkillable.
I feel really helpless with WHMs and their weird Imp status. Every single time I jump into a crowd to do literally anything I always get Imp'd. I don't know if this is just good players or if it's scripted bots but I lose a lot of my strategy to this. I am already Imp'd before I even finish do a pludge + Salted Earth as a DRK or I'd be Imp'd out of my Dragoon LB before I can backflip. I never understood how these players are so fast at that skill.
The previous wouldn't be so bad if my LB wasn't gone when I die during an LB animation lock.
Guard feels weird. Sometimes I swear people crowd control me out of my shield or continue to do massive damage to me while in Guard. This one could just be a skill issue but it's another one of those, I don't get what's happening here moments.
Physical Range DPS do so little damage it's laughable. If a melee is on them they are just straight up toast. MCH are somewhat okay if played by a good player. Their LBs need buffed in PvP though. Infact a lot of jobs need LB reworks for Frontlines separate to CC.
There needs to be some kind of immunity for knock offs and drag in effects. The only thing more unfun than a OHKO limit break is playing a game of Secure, climbing up the ramp and getting immediately dragged off the ramp to your death with no counter.

Biggest hottake, it's time for Battle High to go. Battle High just doesn't work in Frontlines. Battle high was created as a weird mechanic to make matches end faster but it's not serving it's functional very well and makes it way to difficult to kill certain jobs. Battle High is counterintuitive to point based score modes. A team that leads in battle highs can almost always rapidly catch up even if they are drastically further behind in points. Seal Rock is great proof of this where defending can often times be a bad idea. Battle high also encourages chasing stray enemies and running off on your own to pick off kills. If battle high weren't there, more alliances would stick together as a team.

[Llynethil]

Guard feels weird. Sometimes I swear people crowd control me out of my shield or continue to do massive damage to me while in Guard. This one could just be a skill issue but it's another one of those, I don't get what's happening here moments.

That's because some do skills outright do.

Some lb's or abilities ignore or remove guard when used, there is the rare chance the bad netcode causes it aswell.

[True-to-Caesar]

That's not being dumbed down. That's being made more accessible. If it had truly been dumbed down, there would be no skill expression left, but the ceiling is still there.

If you're mad about the more casual players not knowing how to play a class well enough but havign the minimum tools to do whatever they enjoy doing, that's just gatekeeping. If you're mad about the most stupid LBs in the game, that's another story, and has very little to do with the whole system being "dumbed down".

If you remade whole skill sets from jobs, with them having very few skills (so ways to play, react), just to make the whole package more easy to attract a broader audience, you did dumbed down a game mode.

By having the skill floor very close to the skill ceiling, if you don’t call that dumbing down a game I don’t know what is tbh.

What SE did worked as there’s more PvP participation but boy, could they please add a few more skills ?
Because right now it feels like playing a bad MOBA.

On topic, out of all the things I said, sprint should really be the one to change.

[Chasingstars]

Give Analysis-Saw the ability to apply a healing received debuff to all damaged enemies it hits instead of the 1-shot mechanic.

The 5% always felt like such a nothing burger thing when it never happened. Sure when you get that 1:20 chance it can feel great. But it can also just be a feelsbad moment like seeing a BH4 paladin getting KO by that 5% chance. When given the chance most of the time, I just skip using analysis on it unless I am letting RNG take the wheel. I usually priortize Drill or Anchor, if I am allowed to get in close safely I also consider Bioblaster.

[Marxam]

Biggest hottake, it's time for Battle High to go. Battle High just doesn't work in Frontlines. Battle high was created as a weird mechanic to make matches end faster but it's not serving it's functional very well and makes it way to difficult to kill certain jobs. Battle High is counterintuitive to point based score modes. A team that leads in battle highs can almost always rapidly catch up even if they are drastically further behind in points. Seal Rock is great proof of this where defending can often times be a bad idea. Battle high also encourages chasing stray enemies and running off on your own to pick off kills. If battle high weren't there, more alliances would stick together as a team.

Battle high only worked in feast/CC because you had to earn some of those kills instead of just getting lucky with aoes in FL. Even then it's a slippery slope in a game where pvp has tab targeting. Also, FL is always a shit show becuase you have 1v1v1 so it will never be "fair and balanced". There will never be a fair outcome in a match because the possibility of getting ganked by both alliances (regardless of if you are first or last) is always a 1/3 chance and in most cases wins are determined on who gets ganked.

However one PvP that needs to changed is to remove the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place rankings in FL PvP tab. It only needs to show your wins similar to CC. For such a "casual" mode it has the audacity of telling you that you lost but you also are 3rd place. Nothing is more demoralizing than seeing seven 3rd place losses by the end of the week, assuming you only do FL dailies.

[Valence]

If you remade whole skill sets from jobs, with them having very few skills (so ways to play, react), just to make the whole package more easy to attract a broader audience, you did dumbed down a game mode.

By having the skill floor very close to the skill ceiling, if you don’t call that dumbing down a game I don’t know what is tbh.

The complexity and skill expression doesn't exclusively rely on the amount of buttons. If that's truly what you think, then you probably still have much to learn about the mode.

[Divinemights]

The complexity and skill expression doesn't exclusively rely on the amount of buttons. If that's truly what you think, then you probably still have much to learn about the mode.

Unfortunately, it does
Takes FF11 for example, Ninja utsusemi Ni is basically 3 perfect dodge to avoid any magical or physical attacks
However, with complicate maneuver of Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, and Hide, THF can ignore utsusemi effect and instant kill the Ninja which is improved version of Ninja.
There only 2 THF able to make it happen in actual PvP
FF14 4.0 has a great example too, the Machinest Wombo combo under correct maunver can zero out a 35K HP warrior (pretty much current SAM lb but it is result of player control)
Number of buttons do matter

[True-to-Caesar]

Unfortunately, it does
Takes FF11 for example, Ninja utsusemi Ni is basically 3 perfect dodge to avoid any magical or physical attacks
However, with complicate maneuver of Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, and Hide, THF can ignore utsusemi effect and instant kill the Ninja which is improved version of Ninja.
There only 2 THF able to make it happen in actual PvP
FF14 4.0 has a great example too, the Machinest Wombo combo under correct maunver can zero out a 35K HP warrior (pretty much current SAM lb but it is result of player control)
Number of buttons do matter

Not just the number of buttons but having meaningful ones, cooldowns to manage during fights, so on and so forth. There’s none of that here.

Sprint having no cooldown is a prime example of dumb gameplay, you have access to a permanent escape tool, there’s 0 thought process or decision making here. It’s mainly the -oh shite- button.

The complexity and skill expression doesn't exclusively rely on the amount of buttons. If that's truly what you think, then you probably still have much to learn about the mode.

What is there to learn in the current mode ? Besides watching a SAM Chiten buff and knowing when to retreat I genuinely don’t see any complexity or depth here, again the objective was to dumb down the mode to attract a broader audience. Nothing else.

It worked but with a cost.

When I played Mordhau/Chivalry 1, you didn’t have as many keybinds as MMOs and yet the fights could be complex, because even if you like the gameplay or not, there’s depth and complexity. Moves to learn, improving your reaction time. Knowing the maps, weapons, classes special abilities to deal with them.

In both games there was a long learning curve and I enjoyed it because you could witness a real pay off at the end. A big difference between when you started and where you are at the end of the learning process.

I find none of that here because it’s just not made with depth/complexity in mind. Dota is another example, few skills yes, but there’s still depth and many things to learn.

[Cidel]

Battle high only worked in feast/CC because-

Please tell me when Battle high was ever in Feast/CC.

[Mistress_Irika]

The complexity and skill expression doesn't exclusively rely on the amount of buttons. If that's truly what you think, then you probably still have much to learn about the mode.

I'll have to question this.
While buttons are not the sole reason of skill expressions and complexity they have to be considered.

Sadly I cannot come up with a legit example without going off on another topic. All I will say is that I personally feel the changes with samurai. Complexity and skill does still exist. However, samurai is not as complex as it was last expansion, and it's getting difficult to set yourself apart from the other players using the same class. you're using.