Disruptive Frontline Gameplay

[Scintilla]

You do understand that if the DRK pre-made runs past the stragglers to engage the bigger part of the alliance, they've made the grave error of pinching themselves while parts of their team are hanging back at the objective, right? In that situation, the pre-made is at a severe disadvantage because they're down people while you have the entire alliance there and they're now pinched in the middle of your alliance. If an entire alliance somehow manages to lose the fight when the enemy is at such a disadvantage, then the average skill level really needs to go up.

In that situation, you'd turn around and clean house, then take their objective.

I feel you misunderstand. Presuming they are in a substantial group of your alliance the DRK will voke, LB, and kill, as is standard. A large proportion of your team will be dead and those of you who remain will not be able to fight the high BH enemy ahead of you.

If they run at you, the vast majority of your team will run. If enough have begun to run early enough that there are only 2-3 players still at the objective site, they won't voke. It's not worth it. Instead, they will either run past those 2-3 players and (assuming the rest of the team are still close enough for it to be safe) jump to the next nearest player who's within range of other alliance members. It's hardly 'pinched' when they've only got 2 or 3 enemy players behind them - and chances are these 2 or 3 players will be the newer players who didn't (and still haven't) realised the danger that's coming. In the unlikely event that everyone evacuated so quickly that it's no longer safe for the DRK to voke and the attack to be made, you've still given away the objective to them with no counter attack at all. I don't need to point out that that's not the way to win FLs...

[Aravell]

This also requires the premade to be focused on attacking the other random team whilst your own random team comes in for the attack.

You misunderstand my meaning. 1 single tank can disrupt or divert a portion of the backline, or if you're lucky, you can divert the entire backline. If the backline gets dived, there will be 2 common reactions, either they will scatter and flee or they will focus their attention on the person that just dived into them, in both cases, you have successfully diverted the attention of the pre-made's support group and made them that much less effective, if your team is at least aware of the fact that the 4 person pre-made is left to fend for themselves, it's very easy for them to turn it around on them, maybe take out some of their battle high.

I feel you misunderstand.

I don't know how it is on Aether, I rarely play there, but on OCE or JP, this is a common tactic. You back off and bait the enemy team inwards, then you turn around and clean up as more of the enemy team backs away back to the objective. It just greatly weakens the power of the opposing team, which makes them easier to clean up, provided your team is of comparable skill. In the end, any skill gap is a major factor.

As for your presented problem of DRK+RPR+DRGs, Guard would not be worth it, yes, but there is another way. If you Purify the bind and Sprint away, the Hysteria from the RPR LB will likely send you out from the Sky Shatter focus point, which results in you taking much less damage. There should be time as the RPR would want to wait for the Guards to come out so they can break people out of them. On another note, another possible solution to AST stacking is to silence or stun the ASTs in the group, staggering the Macrocosmos casts, which would allow people to Recuperate in between hits and not instantly blow up.

One thing I do agree with people on DRK is that the snapshot for the pull-in on Salted Earth is very wonky since you can be pulled back in when you're already out of range before the animation even starts.

I'm not sure where anyone has claimed to have seen a team of 1 DRK / 1 RPR / 6 ASTs?

My own experiences are DRK / RPR / DRG / DRG. Others have stated experiences with DRK/AST/AST/AST.

Certain people have made claims of 6+ ASTs in this very thread, you can probably find it very easily. I'm just going off what other people have said.

[Scintilla]

If the backline gets dived, there will be 2 common reactions, either they will scatter and flee or they will focus their attention on the person that just dived into them, in both cases, you have successfully diverted the attention of the pre-made's support group and made them that much less effective, if your team is at least aware of the fact that the 4 person pre-made is left to fend for themselves, it's very easy for them to turn it around on them, maybe take out some of their battle high.

So you meant to use a tank/melee to attack the premade's alliance, whilst the premade enter for the kill? Sadly, that too doesn't work from my own experience:

The DRK approaches, the ally tank/melee will jump into the premades alliance. Scattering is less likely - as I said, they're now aware they have a premade and become a little more confident than they would have been in a random team, where scatter may be a likely response. The most likely outcome is they will attack the incoming tank/melee. Depending on the tank/melee used, for example WAR, large groups of the enemy team may be temporarily stunned as part of the attack. In which case, yes, you will likely succeed in distracting the randoms of the premades alliance. However, it remains the case that whilst you are doing all of this, your team are dying right behind you to the premade. While you were jumping into their alliance, their DRK was jumping into yours. Their RPR teleporting in with them, and both DRGs already in the process of their LB cast and are within your team. Now you're in the middle of the enemy team with no aid.

As for your presented problem of DRK+RPR+DRGs, Guard would not be worth it, yes, but there is another way. If you Purify the bind and Sprint away, the Hysteria from the RPR LB will likely send you out from the Sky Shatter focus point, which results in you taking much less damage. There should be time as the RPR would want to wait for the Guards to come out so they can break people out of them.

Purify, Sprint doesn't work. No, the RPR won't need to wait for the Guards to appear - they jump in and use the LB. Anyone who used Guard will have it removed. Anyone who didn't use it wouldn't be able to apply it now anyway - they're sent into Hysteria. They can't use skills, they can't run with purpose, they can't do anything. So the RPR has no need to wait for people to use Guard. When I say these attacks are simultaneous, I'm not overexaggerating.