Things currently wrong with frontlines that the community would like to see fixed

[Kyani]

Okay, Dimitrii - you are a summoner. You have exhausted Dreadwyrm Trance and Cometeor, but did not kill anyone, so your LB bar is under half full. What do you do to be useful for the rest of the fight? Your options are

- Bio/Bio2 people and hope it helps (0 direct potency)
- Try to bind targets (20 Potency)
- Miasma priority targets (35 Potency + dot)
- Spam Ruin II (strictly better than Ruin) - 80 potency
- Cast a few Ruin IIIs (120 potency, then you're even more useless than before)

Let's get this straight: the absolute best possible case for Summoner is being able to Scathe (with a cast time) a handful of times before losing access to the little utility you have. Every other option is worse than Black Mage's filler panic-mode nuke at applying kill pressure. Are unboosted weaponskills amazing? No. But they're a hell of a lot better than any of those at actually killing someone. A completely unbuffed (no HT) Full Thrust combo is twice as much potency as 3 Scathes / Ruin IIIs, with the last hit being a significant amount of pressure by itself.

[Stupiduglytaru]

This crap again about summoner, once again its just a noob killer. Any decent healer can negate a summoner and make them useless, not to mention melee have 2 X self heals.

In a 24man match, I'd rather have 1 blm 3 melee a tank and 2 heals over 4 smns...

I play smn and its so extremely easy to Rekt ppl and stack kills up against noobs, face a real team or have crappy dps in your team your life will be hell.

[Februs]

Things wrong with PvP that I'm pretty sure we can all agree on:

General PvP Problems

• 1. Que times need to be addressed:
  
  This can be done in several ways. For Front Lines, the most common requested solution, by far, is removing The GC restrictions. Lore can be adjusted to a "training exercise" now that the land dispute has been all but forgotten (ignored/ written out of the game / etc), and the current system can be replaced by a "first come first served" Q line. Problem solved.
  
  For Wolves Den, the DF needs to be simplified. This is a radical solution, but all WD game modes should be abolished and replaced. Let's face it: No one Q's for PvP sub level 50. It just doesn't happen. Those game modes are obsolete and should be removed. The only 2 game modes that should exist are matched Q and solo Q WD, and both options should be increased to lvl 60 to encourage more player Q's. Besides this, there's not much that can be done until Feast is released. After that, more improvements can be made.
  
  
• 2. Dead game modes need a lifeline:
  
  This is tied to the first point. Slaughter and Secure are dead, and Wolves Den is nearly dead (save for Friday Night Match-ups). They need to be revived. Improving Q times as listed above would greatly help. More importantly, though, all of these game modes should be raised to lvl 60. They should have been raised to 60 when Seize first came out and a roulette was included for FL. Not increasing the level cap was an oversight that needs to be corrected.
  
  I realize that SE probably has not done this yet for the sake of the players who do not have the expansion, but if we're being brutally honest, the lvl 50 game modes are dead. I feel for non-expansion players, but that's no reason to drag the rest of the community down. They can keep the lvl 50 Q options up for the sake of appearances if they like, but lvl 60 options need to be included. Further all of the Front Lines game modes (Secure / Slaughter / Seize) need to be included in that PvP roulette.
  
  
• 3. PvP Roulette needs to be adjusted and improved:
  
  The current Front Lines Roulette needs to be debugged. There's no reason that a roulette Q should be slower to slot someone than directly Q'ing for Seize. Right now, the FL roulette is completely dysfunctional. This needs to be addressed ASAP.
  
  After all Front Lines game modes are increased to lvl 60, all of them (Secure / Slaughter / Seize) should be included into the Front Line Roulette.
  
  When Feast is released, Wolves Den should be included into a "PvP Roulette" which includes Feast and WD.

Character Adjustments

*I've already mentioned these in another thread. SE said they are "looking into" adjustments. We'll have to see if they live up to it, but in the meantime...

• 1. Action points should be stored individually.
  
  SE has pretty much already said that this is not going to happen.
  
  
  

  While we understand players would like to store the PvP actions separately on each class/job, this would require a lot of resources and time to do. Therefore, to address this for now we're looking into making it possible to redistribute points more smoothly.
  In not so many words, it's just too much work for them to do it. Personally, I don't find this response to be all that acceptable, so I'm reiterating the point. Action points should be stored separately. Redistributing action points should never have been an issue in the first place, as these kinds of things should have been thoroughly thought out before PvP was even released. That said, at least the Dev's are "looking into it."
  
  
• 2. PvP load outs should be separate from PvE load outs:
  
  For the sake of creating custom PvP hotbars, PvP load outs should not be shared with PvE load outs. SE never mentioned this, specifically. So, there is hope that it might still be possible ... but it's not likely. Given that the Devs think that separately storing action points would take too much time and resources, it's probably a safe bet to assume that having separately stored hotbars will get a similar response. We can hope though.
  
  
• 3. PvP skills menu should be adjusted for ease of use.
  
  This would include having skills listed by job or simply having all skills listed. Players should not have to change jobs to re-allocate their skills. Given that SE will not allow us to have our action points stored separately, adjusting the skill menu could be the likely option that they are "looking into."

The Unlikely Wish List

• 1. Variety of Maps:
  
  Playing the same game mode over and over is repetitive enough. Doing it on the same map over and over makes it worse. It would be nice if we could see a change of scenery every once in a while. This does not mean that SE has to add new maps for each game mode. It only means that players should be able to play the same game mode on multiple maps. Ie: Q for Seize, but play it on the Secure map.
  
  With the current maps this may not be possible (though, I really don't see why not); however, going forward SE should be designing all future PvP maps with the mentality that they should be playable on past game modes. Map variety should NOT be a Q option though. It should be a random selection. No need to bog down the DF any more than it already is.
  
  
• 2. Morale restrictions should be removes outright:
  
  This is a controversial one, but the restriction on Morale should be removed. The fact is that the rank 50 players earned that gear. They should get to use it. Further, any advantage that Morale provides to the player is not nearly as steep as the casual community seems to think it is. Pre-mades already have an advantage in coordination and skill, and morale only boosts the item level of 180 gear to 210. PvE gear has already exceeded these bonuses and is far easier to obtain (just run Void Arc once a week and you out-gear a rank 50 PvP'er on your main). The level sync'd version of PvP gear was exceeded in stat bonuses by most ilvl 190 PvE sets, so it has been outdone for a while now. I understand that they sync'd the gear for the sake of "fair play," but it really doesn't do much to make anything fair.
  
  If Morale restrictions are here to stay, however, then they should be adjusted in some way to compensate. Either change the effect of morale (again), or outright remove it and raise the PvP gear level to 190 (thereby making it useful in PvE as well).
  
  
• 3. Wolf Marks should be adjusted:
  
  Wolf mark vendors should be expanded to include mounts, minions, and housing items. Items should be rank locked (in level brackets, maybe 10 items per 10 ranks or something) to provide incentive to rank up.
  
  
• 4. Healers should be given achievements:
  
  I don't think I should have to explain this one. It should have happened a long time ago, and there's no excuse for why it hasn't. We need healers in PvP. Lets give them a reason to join.
  
  
• 5. There should be more variety of PvP Gear:
  
  Again, doesn't really need an explanation. There should be more PvP gear, even if just for vanity.

...I think that covers just about everything, but if I missed anything feel free to add to the list.

[Kyani]

Anyways, RE: Astrologian vs Scholar -

The problem with your post is that healers are essentially tanks in Frontlines, so which ever one has the best ability to fulfill their specific role (an excellent tank and healer combo) is the one that would widely be considered the best

...

Besides that, the argument that "AST can't heal as well as the other two" simply isn't using it correctly.

Okay, coming back to you as a Scholar main:

- Lustrate is the best PvP heal, bar none - it's not even particularly close (Have you ever tried pressing it?) It's as much effective healing as a big heal , except Scholar can hold up to 9 of them before getting into a fight.. and it's off the GCD, so you can stack it with Adlo to outmuscle even Synastry'd Benefic IIs. It's a ridiculous amount of healing, while simiultaneously being more flexible/granular than WHM or AST's equivalents.

- As far as AoE, Indomitability is an instant, OGCD Medica, which can be similarly woven into your AoE healing. Indom is a fantastic amount of raw healing if your team's close enough to make good use of it, and synergizes well with the very powerful Roused Whispering Dawn (which is basically an AoE Regen).

- Adlo is a tiny bit worse than Noct Benefic in a stand-and-cast engagement, but significantly better than anything else you could be spending a GCD on thanks to Emergency Tactics turning it into Actual Cure II if necessary. Swift Adlo -> Lustrate -> Lustrate is a more flexible version of Noct Benefic -> Essential Dignity in 99% of scenarios as well.

- With Field Commander gear, Scholar can actually do a relevant amount of DPS. Energy Drain + Ruin II do about 700 damage combined, which isn't amazing, but it's all either instant or OGCD (noticing a pattern?) "free" extra damage to secure burst on a healer or high/fever.

- Aura Blast is really good. This one shouldn't need an explanation, it's the best ability of its kind for clearing people off of a node-ledge.

[Caelum_Dragguell]

Keep in mind I'm referring almost solely to a 72 man match. Not 24 man and not Wolves Den, those are completely different strategically and also have way different optimal compositions. I'm also speaking from the perspective, not of a pre made match but of one where all of your team mates or the vast majority solo queue, a more disorganized front lines experience.

[Cidel]

snip

See, by your logic, "whichever [healer] has the best ability to fulfill their specific role (an excellent tank and healer combo) is the one that would widely be considered the best," we're back at square one because it's already been established in other threads and by Kyani here that AST's balance in that department is fairly skewed in favor of survivability (tank) over heals. I'm aware that healers often need to take on the role of tanks in PvP; but that's not the case all the time and if being focused on isn't part of the equation, they have to work harder to (and more often than the other 2 healers, are unable to) keep up with party-wide damage, especially if they have chosen the tank stance (Noct) over healing (Diurnal). If you're going to try to continue arguing that AST will keep up with the other 2 (as equally skilled) healers on keeping more than one person alive, I really don't know what kind of matches you're selectively remembering.

...and doesn't have to worry about micro-managing a fairy which runs all over the place.

micro-managing the fairy gives SCHs their high skill floor for their(rewardingly) high skill ceiling. Just because that aspect is there doesn't make them any less a powerful healer when its done right.

But anyway, I'm not going to go on about SCH vs AST here. The latest "FL tier list" (supposedly joke)thread already had some healer strength discussion in there.

Edit: didn't even read the stuff on the 3rd page. Kyani has a good write-up on what SCH is capable of.

[Dimitrii]

@ Kyani

I don't disagree with your point, melees are better capable of inflicting instantaneous damage in between burst cooldowns than summoner but that's simply the price summoner pays for being able to dish out damage (albeit passively) on multiple targets simultaneously as opposed to the melee who are only affecting that one target. What are you trying to get at with that point though? That summoners should get more potent attacks to use in between bursts? Or that this fact alone is enough to warrant the ability for smn to burst with its unmatched unsurpassed mobility and range compared to the other jobs, even jobs within its own class?

In large scale battles the melee will be able to perform their weaponskill rotations while they wait for their cooldowns but this comes with the price of being exposed to potentially getting stunlocked by opposing enemies and subsequently killed the longer they stay engaged. Summoner meanwhile can just sit back safely tossing their dots from afar biding their time for their burst to be available again. It is soooo much easier to protect your battle high/fever as smn like this. Also those dots may not provide instantaneous dmg but they still do pressure the enemy heals if not passively. The dmg they inflict cannot always be ignored if the number of dots afflicted on the party is amplified by multiple summoners to the point where medica II/regen alone wont be sufficient to negate the dmg (especially with medica 2 not stacking anymore like in the early secure days). Lots of ppl view the purify recast reduction as an indirect smn nerf because of this.

[TheWaywardWind]

Anyways, RE: Astrologian vs Scholar -



Okay, coming back to you as a Scholar main:

1) Your analysis of Lustrate is fine, except you're solely examining the few instances in which you can get that off. And besides, with the shield counted from Aspected Benefic, the healing is just as much as Lustrate. And it's not limited to the occasional and AT BEST 9 casts lustrate. Have you actually USED it? Using the best case scenario for lustrate is a serious push of Scholar's capabilities. Also synastry'd Benefic IIs + Aspected Benefics are stronger than your Adlo + Lustrate combo. Sorry if this hurts.

2) You're arguments are contradicting themselves. You either have 9 lustrates or less than that if you choose to indomitability. You're making it seem as if you can have both, which you can, since Indom costs an Aetherflow stack. The difference is that Astrologian doesn't have to sacrifice since its casts are essentially limitless - limited only by how much MP you have.

PLUS, you have the option between shields and heals, all of which can be buffed at any time with Synastry. Scholar does not have this.

-Adlo is worse potency wise, AND it has a cast time. Nocturnal Benefic does not have this. And you need to use an ability to give you a Cure II, Astro is free to cast theirs at any time they want. ET down? Sorry, shit out of luck. Meanwhile AST is has unlimited stronger shields, a Cure II, and essential dignity (the first two of which can be buffed.) Scholar also does not have this ease.

3) lol. Cards buffing others > potentially 700 damage combined. Plus, you're also going to spend an Aetherflow stack doing that. Meaning, again, you're limited in your choices. You cannot have it all.

4) Retrogradation still beats in the utility category. Heals, deals damage, removes one detriment from party AND removes one buff from enemies. It's easiest the best unique healer ability, bar none.

You're free to think as you like, but all of your arguments stand on their own. You keep trying to argue specific instances which combined cannot happen. You cannot have 9 lustrates if you're using one on Indom and Energy Drain. Meanwhile, AST CAN have it all.

Your arguments are essentially, "Scholar is really good! ...if these specifics things happen under these conditions and you don't do anything else. Astro is not nearly as limited.

[TheWaywardWind]

micro-managing the fairy gives SCHs their high skill floor for their(rewardingly) high skill ceiling. Just because that aspect is there doesn't make them any less a powerful healer when its done right.

Edit: didn't even read the stuff on the 3rd page. Kyani has a good write-up on what SCH is capable of.

See above. If you're unable to play to the classes full potential, that's peachy, but that's a you problem. Scholar does not magically outperform Astro in PvP just because you have not seen any Astros not take advantage of its skill sets.

And anyway, I'm not gonna argue with you about it all day. Most people agree AST is the meta of healing, so.

[Cidel]

See above. If you're unable to play to the classes full potential, that's peachy, but that's a you problem. Scholar does not magically outperform Astro in PvP just because you have not seen any Astros not take advantage of its skill sets.

If you're unable to play to the classes full potential, that's peachy, but that's a you problem. Astrologian does not magically outperform Scholar in PvP just because you have not seen any Scholars take advantage of its skill sets.

See what I did there?

Astro is not nearly as limited.

I chuckled. If you think so champ.