Thoughts on Red Sands?

[Valence]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. A failed burst, someone escaping successfully, or anything that's not a pure oneshot burst, could potentially have been a kill, but was prevented for varied reasons in each case. Those can be a lot of things, from mitigation, cover, shielding, teamplay, good positioning, defense against peeling, or just somebody defending successfully and suddenly making MP important as a resource. Even with a crushing burst meta, it doesn't absolve everything else either. You said it yourself, assuming no crystal progress is made and nobody dies to negate lb building, it indeed gives no inherent value to the damage that went off for no gain, but it gives inherent value to everything else.

Just out of curiosity, you seem to have played on NA, did you play on EU as well? At high level? Is it similar? Different?

[VoidsentStatus]

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So far:
S1 - Crystal rank Aether
S2 - Crystal rank Primal
S3 - Crystal rank Crystal
S4 - Crystal rank Mana + Top 100 Crystal + Top 30 Dynamis
S5-7 - vacation, mostly casuals on Mana
S8 - currently Diamond 5 Mana & Gaia + Plat 4 Primal + Bronze 3 on Chaos because it won't queue T_T Mostly going off Brian Ricardo's streams for Crystal/Diamond matches on EU because that happens to be when I can catch him most times so I can somewhat compare it to NA. Seems more skirmishy/messy than NA in general. JP is skirmishy as well but they won't chase as hard as what I saw on stream or even in Bronze since when I queue'd there were like 2-3 top 30's in the matches, either decayed to Gold or world transfer so I see a Endless Conflict with unranked. EU almost reminded me of OCE level griefing I heard of where they chase to no end. Most of what I remember is Brian having issues with synergy/chasing/grouping which shows since he mained healer in stream back then.

As for "making MP important as a resource", mmmmm, I'd say it depends on the comps to start. One thing about JP I learned was how to maximize my uptime on BRD in terms of knowing when I can still put out damage and not have mana or guard or purify because the damage threat of the enemy team is low. I know I'll have time to escape or get healed up. I think MP would be important if you wanted to go back in and you had potential to die, but even then you can get into nitpicky territory. If you had a 2-3 tank comp with 2-3 range dps, I can see MP being important on the tanks to frontline, but not on the range dps assuming they're spread out. If you're in Overtime and forced to stay on the crystal, MP can be important then as well. However, and this can change depending on map and comps as well, I'm looking at things from a 1 target at a time perspective. If one person comes in and soaks a bunk of damage and they escape, they're normally going to be replaced by someone else who ends up holding it for a given time period. Even if you lived and had MP, you wouldn't necessarily head straight back in to frontline and you had no Guard or Purify with the MP you had left. You still play on the sidelines a bit. And because I'm thinking of things in that rotating sense, MP is only as important as the circumstances surrounding it that force its importance or allow for its use. Generic MP use I would say is only important if you/your team fucked up and grouped unnecessarily to give the enemy team free splash damage. But I'd say it's situational where having MP could be useful compared to if you were allowed to just regen up and don't plan on using it regardless of if you have it.

[VoidsentStatus]

Just out of curiosity, you seem to have played on NA, did you play on EU as well? At high level? Is it similar? Different?

It would seem at least like the following so far in my experience:
NA - [grouped] [different targets a decent amount of the time due to a lack of shoutcallers. anywhere between 1-3 targets]
JP - [skirmish early, group later] [1, max 2 different targets depending on ranges. 1-2 fights breaking out surrounding the crystal but not on the crystal. JP does not care about the crystal floating in the 20-40% range for free most times as they'll just get a wipe/momentum and push to 50% if not further and end with the LB advantage they have. very momentum heavy so the early crystal movement is pretty much non-important. once the momentum starts and one team has solidified pushing the crystal, then the match stays organized as a group in most cases because now the progress to beat or extend has been set.]
EU - [skirmish] [can have organized calls but has the worst chasing out of the 3, even for the few matches I saw that had ex-crystal's, even later in the match the team can be split up and won't recall/retract chases to the crystal like what happens on JP. there wasn't a "my team has 50%+ progress, let me rubber band to the crystal and keep progress moving, it always seemed like ppl were pushing for a wipe/stagger continuation into the spawn point with 3-4 ppl sometimes instead of just having confidence in the next 5v5/4v5 fight]

also, even within the data regions, some data centers are slightly more chasing/split focus orientated as well. You're much more likely to get chased and backline harassed on Crystal or Aether than you are on Primal. They also each gravitate toward different jobs. Monks as an example can dominate NA but Mana has really good WHM's that shut down riddle consistently so you don't see as many there. Mana has notable BLM's, NIN's, WHM's, but Gaia I've had way more problems with SMN's and MCH's. And that job popularity can change how openings are handled in general while still filling the generic principle over the course of a match.