Nerf smite

[Goldolds1972]

I just say enjoy the game for what it is. Stop trying to change things so that your favorite class has it easier than others. I play MCH. I get my behind handed to me as much as I can destroy. I dont like the fact that my skills do pretty much next to nothing at all cause everyone seems to have all these buffs and defenses where you just cant hit them for anything. I just know I can be a somehwhat backup for my teammates with my turret and shotgun skill for when my team is getting ganged up on. If you ask me, each class should only have one kind of CC allowed.... not this 2 to 3 different kinds of CC before another person can one shot kill your whole team with one hit. You either get a push back, pull in, or stun. Thats it. I hate the getting getting yanked and shoved around 450 times before being stunned and then one shot killed by an OP class LB. Its annoying. But thats my opinion on pvp fights. Wether you agree or disagree.... dont matter to me. I just do the best I can with what SE put in the game. Just have fun.

[TofuLove]

I just say enjoy the game for what it is. Stop trying to change things so that your favorite class has it easier than others.

I try my best to have a good faith effort conversation about a mode I love to play, and I don't think I am particularly biased towards one particular class. I play basically all the classes and have for a few years now.

I actually don't think melee is in a good spot right now due to purify, crowd control and battlehigh changes, but this particular skill is problematic.
The reason they gave for the smite buff is ridiculous - to boost it's usage against swift role action.
They are trying to balance crowd control immunity vs damage dealing which ends up with further damage inflation.

Batllehigh changes already created crazy amount of damage inflation - I wrote about it in other post, how everyones healthbars are static - yet everyone is now doing more damage as the game goes on for longer. It makes encounters faster which gives less time to pvp.
I don't mind burst meta - but when every encounter feels like a burst due to high damage - it loses it's strategic value.

If you ask me, each class should only have one kind of CC allowed.... not this 2 to 3 different kinds of CC before another person can one shot kill your whole team with one hit. You either get a push back, pull in, or stun. Thats it. I hate the getting getting yanked and shoved around 450 times before being stunned and then one shot killed by an OP class LB. Its annoying.

Exactly, that's actually not a hot take at all. Instead of boosting damage dealing from a random skill - how about reducing the value of swift instead?
If purify was better, or crowd control abilities had a fall off after a certain amount of times you've been hit with it (a sort of resilience buff), or limit on a number of targets it affects (lets say 5) - people would use swift less. No need to buff damage dealing role action!

I play MCH. I get my behind handed to me as much as I can destroy. I dont like the fact that my skills do pretty much next to nothing at all cause everyone seems to have all these buffs and defenses where you just cant hit them for anything. I just know I can be a somehwhat backup for my teammates with my turret and shotgun skill for when my team is getting ganged up on.

MCH is actually in a pretty good place right now in frontline. Combined with bravery and turret it can be surprisingly tanky. The problem is that there are very few regular pvp players that choose to play it and it tends to be a favoured pick by the rouletters - massive underrepresenting the value it can have.

[Valence]

They are trying to balance crowd control immunity vs damage dealing which ends up with further damage inflation.

Batllehigh changes already created crazy amount of damage inflation - I wrote about it in other post, how everyones healthbars are static - yet everyone is now doing more damage as the game goes on for longer. It makes encounters faster which gives less time to pvp.

It seems that it's been their design direction over patches in Dawntrail. It's been the same story within CC, around which pvp is actually balanced.
We went from what people called a support slop early on back to inflated damage that never ends to make sure things die even if they defend, on top of rampant cc options.

CC games lasting over 10min went back to 2min steamrolls.
FL games that used to last 13to 15min (or more in the old secure), now barely go over 10min, and 8min in Worqor Shitteh, the pvp map literally designed for people to avoid pvp and be done with it fast.

Frankly depressing.

MCH is actually in a pretty good place right now in frontline. Combined with bravery and turret it can be surprisingly tanky. The problem is that there are very few regular pvp players that choose to play it and it tends to be a favoured pick by the rouletters - massive underrepresenting the value it can have.

Since most people don't play with full enemy vfx in FL for obvious reasons (unless they want to go blind), MCH is incredibly cheesy as long as the player is roughly aware of the math behind. Just chainsaw, bravery, and spite stuff for 60+ native, raw potency damage (90k with BH5). Subtract the innate DR of the target you're attacking and you should have a rough idea if they'll survive it or not. They're not gonna guard anyway.

And if you're BH5, you're essentially negating a melee's entire DR, and doing basically +25-30% on ranged players.

And if you're not sure you can attempt a full WF combo anyway.

[Aidorouge]

I just say enjoy the game for what it is. Stop trying to change things so that your favorite class has it easier than others. I play MCH. I get my behind handed to me as much as I can destroy. I dont like the fact that my skills do pretty much next to nothing at all cause everyone seems to have all these buffs and defenses where you just cant hit them for anything. I just know I can be a somehwhat backup for my teammates with my turret and shotgun skill for when my team is getting ganged up on.

Aye, I stopped taking the mode seriously well over a year ago, and haven't even been playing it for the last several months after I reached Series 30. Honestly not enthusiastic about having to start up again once the next Series starts, but FOMO be like that.

I went from someone who played Frontlines for hours within a single week to someone who can barely justify doing it even once a day after I realized what the mode was really like, and that I ultimately had zero effect on matches that were more or less predetermined every single time. As a MCH main in particular I just accepted how performative the whole experience actually is, and I started to understand WHY so many other people treat the mode with such lethargy. It's not just PVEers there for the XP and rewards, it's also a lot of PVPers who lost all motivation to care anymore.

[ChrysOCE]

Balance was never Frontline's strong suit, and it's only gotten worse over time with Role skills where most are worthless placebos, while the remaining few determine which team walks away with the win uncontested.

Most are worthless placebos? You cannot be serious.

Rampart, Rampage, Smite, Bloodbath, Bravery, Eagle Eye, Diabrosis, Stoneskin, Rust, Phantom Dart.... that's most of the damn role skills. And you wonder why you seem to have no impact in Frontlines...

[AyaMinn]

I never said melee can't aoe, I said not as effectively. So you're speaking to the wind there love. But I still said what I said and still disagree

[TofuLove]

Most are worthless placebos? You cannot be serious.

Rampart, Rampage, Smite, Bloodbath, Bravery, Eagle Eye, Diabrosis, Stoneskin, Rust, Phantom Dart.... that's most of the damn role skills. And you wonder why you seem to have no impact in Frontlines...

I definitely don't think they are placebo, but I think they are a weak patch to a fundamental problem that the skills are not designed for frontline.

SE have only limited amount of control over what happens in frontline independently of CC - damage received reduction, damage dealt reduction, lb recharge time change... And now role actions.

Role actions are basically levers for cross role balance, though to balance jobs with them is very tricky. In my opinion magical ranged probably have the weakest role actions right now. Like summoner is currently way better than picto in frontline - I don't think anyone will argue with that? However, they both have access to the same role actions - so how do you balance for that with just one skill? It's kinda impossible. And yet picto has been somewhat of a meta class in CC.

Similarly with sustain meta in CC, (instead of nerfing cover) SE started to introduce more guard breaks and crowd control. So now you have a problem with crowd control and guard breaks in frontline, which they are clearly balancing by introducing more damage via role actions... Which in turns makes encounters more deadly. So they make battle high permanent and respawn instant. Which further makes the problem worse

OK, theoretically this makes gameplay "fast and dynamic". But does it? I don't think so, just because the map design is too big. If anything CC is way faster and more dynamic. I swear if that's the direction they are going with, they should increase movement speed from spawn...

[TofuLove]

I never said melee can't aoe, I said not as effectively. So you're speaking to the wind there love. But I still said what I said and still disagree

I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Melee AOEs are as effective as other jobs imo. We literally just had viper nerfs because it was too effective. If you want to post detailed examples about how melee aoes are not effective, or vods - great. Is it a skill issue or you have some kind of point? Its hard to say.

But if I even tried to be in your shoes, If you have a problem with (let's say) 50% of skills that your class has, you don't patch it by introducing an action that fixes all of that by just being overpowered. That's just weird.

[Deedlit]

Guard and Breaks shouldn't exist at all.

[SalamanderIX]

After seeing people use low hp auto-target script and get away with it for over a year, i think it's time they just retire Smite if they can't be bothered to ban people for using that stuff.

Replace Smite or just get rid of the reset.

While they're at it though, they should nerf guard. 99% damage reduction was ridiculous in addition to all its buffs over time. Guard should not be a get out free button. We can't be reducing Guard breaks while keeping guard in this state. If they want to keep it at 99%, we need more guard breaks.