PvP: WAR adjustments (suggestion)

[Elfidan]

Yeah, I think that's on purpose Valence. People have to close range with you to do damage to you while you're hitting them the whole time. If you had defensives similar to melee who have to be in melee range to do damage (except NIN KEKW) you would be much harder to kill than a melee. It's also why the hp totals have been adjusted repeatedly. It's not perfect but there is at least reason for it and they have been adjusting it since 6.1 dropped. The turret shield on MCH is actually pretty good because it threatens people who are harassing you if they dare stay in melee. BRD has a pre-emptive CC removal which is cool but maybe not as big of a thing by comparison. I do feel like shots should be interruptible like other casts except just by use of other skills. If your low enough to be in critical would it really help though? Guard takes like 5 seconds to actually work after all. The idea is if you weren't slowed you could almost indefinitely keep a melee at ranged parody which would be pretty awful. Yeah, the "Role Agnostic" tag is a load of crap. Anyone who says otherwise is huffing copium or just doesn't actually play the mode. It really depends on play styles but generally the problem with all ranged games is that they can't really deal with being CC locked as well as any of the melee. Not that anyone does well with 8-10 seconds of loss of player autonomy but when your hp is so much lower that's a real problem when anyone can die in 2 seconds.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Yeah, the "Role Agnostic" tag is a load of crap. Anyone who says otherwise is huffing copium or just doesn't actually play the mode.

Uuuhhhhhh... when people refer to role agnostic as a term, it is usually in reference to the queueing system not enforcing roles (like forced 1x tank 1x healer etc.) and overarching job design.

This refers to how for example despite being "healers" their role in combat differs wildly from being heal and support oriented (AST) to providing primarily damage pressure while chucking out utility shields (SGE) to basically be a buffer/debuffer support (SCH). However, the majority of healing is done by players individually, making a lack of healers not an automatic loss.

Same with tanks, PLD is the stereotypical pvp tank, WAR is the squishier CC based tank, DRK is actually a bruiser-type DPS focuaing on survival and damage and GNB being similar with three sub roles to choose from.

Amongst melee, Samurai and Monk qualify as bruiser type DPS but also have tank capabilities akin to PLD and WAR respectively given their mitigation / support options (Thunderclap can shield allies) where as DRG RPR and NIN are more traditional melee dps.

Similar points can be made for DNC and RDM being found more in melee combat despite their main roles where as BRD and BLM are more traditional.
"That" is what role agnostic usually refers to.

[Valence]

I wonder if for example if you wildfire something, you automatically go into blastspam mode no matter what for 3 shots would be too strong or not, would be a cool interaction to actually get it activated without the slow stacking while giving you some mobility back to kite backwards if your drill combo's are on cd.

Other than the fact that having to build up that burst being part of the class identity, and turning it into a normal on demand burst like other jobs feels like we're losing something already, there is also the problem that current overheat is actually malleable enough to be used in different combinations with WF. In fact, you rarely use 3 heat blasts under WF since it will detonate it and you want the last hit to be something that hits hard in order to get an actual alpha burst out of it.

And then there is also adjustments that can come from the actual context, perhaps you're being stunned in the middle of it (happens all the time) and you need to adjust the burst sequence on the fly. Or maybe you're trying to pop it faster and you need to skip the last hit so you don't use the last heat blast in favor of scattergun to detonate immediately. Or perhaps you're trying to pull a full normal burst + LB immediately on top, but similarly you need to cut it short by one GCD to get it out faster and rely on the LB as the finishing hit instead.

That would kinda defeat that flexibility, but maybe it's a trade off that could work. Not sure I like how it would dumb down the job though, but maybe it's too complicated in comparison to many others.

Yeah, I think that's on purpose Valence.

Of course it's on purpose. I'm merely pointing out that the two biggest roles in the game are ranged DPS and the rest. This is also why they seem to be conscious of it and have their matchmaking try to even the spread between both teams, even though at times it fails spectacularly.

People have to close range with you to do damage to you while you're hitting them the whole time. If you had defensives similar to melee who have to be in melee range to do damage (except NIN KEKW) you would be much harder to kill than a melee. It's also why the hp totals have been adjusted repeatedly. It's not perfect but there is at least reason for it and they have been adjusting it since 6.1 dropped.

I agree on paper. In practice, it's skewed toward melees (and healers but those are another story in different facets of the game mode, which can make a general 3rd role on its own). The problem is not the range of melees, they have so many tools to get around it that it's basically a non issue. The crux of the matter is that melees have to take the brunt of everybody hitting them when they're fighting in the frontlines so naturally they need more survivability until they need to bail. That on its own, works more or less properly and they have to bail more often than ranged have to actually (unless the game is lopsided).

But that's only one case scenario, the other being the one I exposed above. The highest you get in ranks, especially past diamond and in crystal, melee DPS players are good enough to throw this paradigm upside down and their job overall value can be crushing, because they are good enough to work around melee limitations. Ranged players barely have that option, they're too immobile for this. If melees have decided that they want you dead, you're dead most of the time. This is what's lopsided.

The turret shield on MCH is actually pretty good because it threatens people who are harassing you if they dare stay in melee.

Nobody said it's bad. I actually use it when I'm counting on my team mates to help, and it helps.

But believe me when I tell you that it won't save you from melees or RDMs that have it in for you, especially if there is more than one. You'll get deleted under 10s all the same, especially if you have to move and the turret prevents you to.

The idea is if you weren't slowed you could almost indefinitely keep a melee at ranged parody which would be pretty awful.

Not really. If you shoot, you're not sprinting, and thus they catch up to you. If you're sprinting anyway, they gap close to you, and can re-sprint. One of the things that also slow you down is the need to recuperate to prevent you from straight up dying, which cuts off your sprint as well, which is a double edged sword.

But yes I do believe that it would probably be tedious for melees, but you know what actually? That's a hot take but I don't care. Either that or raise our HP pools. We still don't have defensives anyway. Would also reduce the oneshot garbage from MNKs and whatnot.

[Elfidan]

Uuuhhhhhh... when people refer to role agnostic as a term, it is usually in reference to the queueing system not enforcing roles (like forced 1x tank 1x healer etc.) and overarching job design.

Yes, thank you for the basic info reply. When I say that people say it is role agnostic and that they are out of touch I mean to say that random teams are not in fact fair, and the balancing is being done based on win rates which mean nothing thanks to the fact that everything is random. If doing the same thing ad nauseum and expecting different results is insanity. Then doing random things and expecting useful data must be its little brother madness.

Not having a healer does not mean an instant loss but often you need to play much harder and work together better to beat a team with a healer or twelve forbid a tank and healer. It's a simple matter of comparing the amount of support they afford to dps they provide. While they aren't pure dps levels they definitely are not balanced reasonably for the random state of play in which we exist. If you really believe healers don't put up a majority of the healing in a fight you play with bad healers. Keep in mind I am not a "Good" pvp healer and mostly default to dps degenerate. Even so it's not uncommon for me to be brushing up against 2 million healing in ranked and easily topmost of all of my teams heals while still doling out tons of damage. If I can do that why in the world would you think healers don't do the majority of the healing?

I agree on paper. In practice, it's skewed toward melees (and healers but those are another story in different facets of the game mode, which can make a general 3rd role on its own). The problem is not the range of melees, they have so many tools to get around it that it's basically a non issue. The crux of the matter is that melees have to take the brunt of everybody hitting them when they're fighting in the frontlines so naturally they need more survivability until they need to bail. That on its own, works more or less properly and they have to bail more often than ranged have to actually (unless the game is lopsided).

But that's only one case scenario, the other being the one I exposed above. The highest you get in ranks, especially past diamond and in crystal, melee DPS players are good enough to throw this paradigm upside down and their job overall value can be crushing, because they are good enough to work around melee limitations. Ranged players barely have that option, they're too immobile for this. If melees have decided that they want you dead, you're dead most of the time. This is what's lopsided.

Agree to disagree. There seems to be some gameplay variance here because a lot of this is not the case in my experience. You can literally kite a melee all damn day unless you already wasted everything and have found yourself out of position. If they dive the backline to kill you and your team let's that go it isn't you or the job, it's the team that failed there.

Nobody said it's bad. I actually use it when I'm counting on my team mates to help, and it helps.

But believe me when I tell you that it won't save you from melees or RDMs that have it in for you, especially if there is more than one. You'll get deleted under 10s all the same, especially if you have to move and the turret prevents you to.

RDM is basically a joke at this point. 10 seconds? That's soooooo long. If you don't die for 10 whole seconds that's really good. Are you dueling them? I applaud dynamic use of the turret but its duration isn't that long you shouldn't need to worry about sticking in place excessively usually just long enough to bait one tick of damage up. If you can't get them killed or run off with that it's just a wash and you should run back to your team.

Not really. If you shoot, you're not sprinting, and thus they catch up to you. If you're sprinting anyway, they gap close to you, and can re-sprint. One of the things that also slow you down is the need to recuperate to prevent you from straight up dying, which cuts off your sprint as well, which is a double edged sword.

But yes I do believe that it would probably be tedious for melees, but you know what actually? That's a hot take but I don't care. Either that or raise our HP pools. We still don't have defensives anyway. Would also reduce the oneshot garbage from MNKs and whatnot.

MNK one shot doesn't happen these days. They have to do all sorts of janky things which you can derail during the set up now. It's not like it was when they could just kill you with enlightened Meteodive. It's so rare now to die from actual MNK damage during LB and not someone else jumping in with them during the stunlock.

[Valence]

Agree to disagree. There seems to be some gameplay variance here because a lot of this is not the case in my experience. You can literally kite a melee all damn day unless you already wasted everything and have found yourself out of position. If they dive the backline to kill you and your team let's that go it isn't you or the job, it's the team that failed there.

Again I agree on paper, but that reasoning is far too binary. Being jumped by melees when you're out of resources doesn't mean all the time that you got out of position, sometimes you'll just get jumped when retreating normally. Now then you'll give me the argument that the team isn't helping and I'd agree, but again, sometimes they just can't because they have their own plates to deal with. Or sometimes some of them try, but you still get murdered because you're so fucking squishy and they're so fucking tanky that they can waltz in, finish you off, and waltz out.

That's not something I have noticed in plat/diam, it's very specific to crystal and top players. Maybe a skill issue though? Sure, possibly, but I suspect those guys would be playing ranged DPS as well and yet, they don't.

RDM is basically a joke at this point. 10 seconds? That's soooooo long. If you don't die for 10 whole seconds that's really good. Are you dueling them? I applaud dynamic use of the turret but its duration isn't that long you shouldn't need to worry about sticking in place excessively usually just long enough to bait one tick of damage up. If you can't get them killed or run off with that it's just a wash and you should run back to your team.

RDM is all but a joke when you play ranged DPS. It literally murders you in less time that you can count if they're not playing like monkeys. Their combo never drops and they can just wait your guard out and continue as if nothing happened. They have 2 charges to continue harassing you if you manage to get away, and their finisher has great range. If it doesn't kill you then that's great, but they still managed to put you out of the fight for ages. They are squishy but they can generally get away with anything but the most vicious sequences of bursts and chases from allies since they have insane tools for mobility.

Really good RDMs also just do even better than what melees DPS do at high level. They wait to see which squishy runs out of resources, jump you even when you're already safe and retreated, and then they are faced with two choices: bail if it stinks for them to commit, or just murder you. If you go back to your team, you're out of resources and expose yourself, which is a basic fault of positioning. This is why I'm annoyed by the fact that against really good players, there is literally nowhere safe for you to retreat. And you have to retreat, else you die, like every job on the game. But unlike every other job, you don't have the tools to sustain that kind of harassment well.

MNK one shot doesn't happen these days. They have to do all sorts of janky things which you can derail during the set up now. It's not like it was when they could just kill you with enlightened Meteodive. It's so rare now to die from actual MNK damage during LB and not someone else jumping in with them during the stunlock.

It happens less, but it's not exactly rocket science to prime your phantom rush for after the big burst Meteodrive combo, use SSS to stun the target before they can emergency recuperate, and finish you off. And if it's not them, it's one of their allies. Guard won't save you or buy you time. It's still nasty, but don't get me wrong, I'll take the nerf to enlightenment because yes, it definitely helps.

[Elfidan]

The only thing I would add is that I don't think it's a skill issue. I think it's more about data center play styles. I haven't played on EU but now and then I'll go doodle around on Aether and it's super different to me the way people choose to do certain things. If you ever get the chance to come over to Primal and your ping isn't high double or triple digits I think you'll notice what I mean.

[Valence]

Possibly. I'd be interested to see how it goes elsewhere, even though I'm not gonna go back to NA with that 200ms latency.

Doesn't remove the question though, how do Aether players play so differently that it suddenly allows them to counter that problem? I'll definitely admit that a part of this is me whining about it because I'm frankly getting tired of it at the highest level, but I still do believe it holds a part of truth somewhere. If anything, ranged teams will get crushed by melee teams because that matchup is an uphill battle on almost all fronts.

[Valence]

I believe I hijacked that thread enough as it is actually... My apologies.

[Absurdity]

On top of it the job is designed to duel a little (like SAM), and will output a really threatening amount of damage to any attacker. On top of it you have an AoE bind/silence as well to get out of trouble.

Don't forget that your melee combo in white shift puts up a pretty strong barrier on every part of the combo with a selfheal finisher while still doing impressive amounts of damage and having a very low cooldown.

Although I haven't played the job in pvp since probably 6.2 so it might be entirely different now, I never felt like I would be absolutely outclassed in a 1v1.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I believe I hijacked that thread enough as it is actually... My apologies.

Nah it's okay for me, dw.