Avoiding Stunlock

[loaded-god-complex]

Does anyone have advice on how to avoid stunlock in Frontlines? I play SMN.

[Februs]

Run.

Okay, serious this time ... There really aren't a lot of options when it comes to avoiding stun locks, but here's a few pointers:

• The first thing to remember to do is to keep a strong awareness of your surroundings.
  
  I can't stress that enough, because once you get stunned your options are limited. The best way to avoid stun locks is to prevent them from happening altogether. You can only do that by keeping your eyes open.
  
  
• Know when to run.
  
  As much as I was joking about running away from a stun locking target (most likely a Pld), I was equally serious. Depending on the circumstances, keeping your distance really is best option.
  
  In Frontlines, there's a lot of targets to throw between you and that incoming Pld. Take advantage of that clutter. If you see a Pld coming your way, put a mob of your own teammates between you and them. The Pld may give up the chase for a more readily available target. You're kind of throwing your teammates under the bus by doing this, but better them then you, right? You should keep in mind, however, that there will be a limit to how far you should run away. Retreats are contagious. The team that buckles the hardest, loses. If too many people retreat at once, it spells doom for your team. So, sometimes it's best to just take a hit for them rather than be the first domino in your own downfall.
  
  In Feast, you have less places to run and less distractions to take advantage of. However, what you do have is walls. If you see a Pld heading your way, it's not a bad idea to put as many walls between you and him/her as you can. Again, the circumstances of the match dictate how favourable of an option this will be, but ranged players have WAY more flexibility in how much distance they can maintain between them and a target. Take advantage of that flexibility as much as you can.
  
  
• If you cannot keep your distance, force the Pld to keep theirs.
  
  Running away isn't always an option, but that doesn't mean you can't keep a Pld at a distance. I don't use Smn myself; so, I'm not as familiar with your kit, but I'm fairly certain you have a knock back. Use it. It can give you time to make an escape, even if you've already been stunned once. If you manage to squeeze a knockback between their first and second stun, or just purify with a follow up knock back, you're free and clear to pop a sprint and get the heck out of there.
  
  Another thing to remember is to use the landscape to your advantage. Pld's can't fly, so any nearby cliffs will be to your benefit. Even if the fall doesn't kill them, they're not stunning you from the bottom of the mountainside.
  
  
• The last preemptive measure I can think of is to hit them before they hit you.
  
  I have no idea if Smn's have any of this available, but binds, stuns, sleeps, and heavies come in handy here. If you can exercise some CC of your own on the incoming target, it gives you time to re-position, run away, or distract them with something else. If you have none of those things at your disposal, and running is still not an option, then your best bet as a Dps is to make stun locking you as punishing as possible. This means keeping yourself close to other Dps on your team and dishing out as much dmg as you can to the incoming target. If you can put a big enough dent in their hp bar, then your other Dps might jump in and try to swipe the kill. Even Pld's will second guess going for a stun if they think it might cost them their lives, so anything you can do to make that happen will increase your odds of them retreating or getting severely punished. Don't be afraid to mark the target as well, to encourage your fellow dps to chip in.

Once you've actually been stunned, however, your options are limited to basically two things:

• The first is to cry for help. I don't recommend this one, because it's degrading and unlikely to get results. In Feast, the incoming dps often prevents healers from wasting time casting esuna or the like. In Front lines, there's just so much going on around them that they're unlikely to even notice you need help, let alone have the freedom to actually issue that help. That said, if you have no other options available to you, it doesn't hurt to ask. You might get lucky.
  
  
• The only other option is to burn a purify. ONE purify, however, will not stop a full stunlock. Pld's can reapply a stun within 2s, so one just doesn't cut it. You will most likely need something else to help you get away. That's why things like Knock backs come in handy. Knockbacks are, often, the best solution to getting a Pld off of you; however, stuns and sleeps (likely using swiftcast) can do the job as well. Anything that gives you time to pop a sprint is an asset.

Hopefully that helps. I'm not a big fan of casters, myself, but these are the counter measures I see most often taken against my Pld, and they're the ones which annoy me the most. Keep in mind, though, that your awareness of what's about to happen to you is what gives you the best opportunity to react preemptively. You're a ranged player, so you really have no one but yourself to blame if you end up in a tight spot.

[Thekk]

• The only other option is to burn a purify. ONE purify, however, will not stop a full stunlock. Pld's can reapply a stun within 2s, so one just doesn't cut it. You will most likely need something else to help you get away. That's why things like Knock backs come in handy. Knockbacks are, often, the best solution to getting a Pld off of you; however, stuns and sleeps (likely using swiftcast) can do the job as well. Anything that gives you time to pop a sprint is an asset.

All sound advice. I'd like to add one thing about purify. Most people don't realize you can cast it on other players. So if you see someone else - like your healer *wink* - getting stunned, don't be afraid to use it on them.

The paladin might be able to reapply a stun, but in the end it's still 3-4 seconds less you'll spend out cold, since that 2 seconds stun would have came afterwards anyway. In smaller fights, that can make a huge difference. If you have the whole enemy team on you in frontlines however, you were going to die anyway and that boils down to being aware of where you stand.

[PotatoTree]

I just want to add that SMN knockback is hilariously bad.

[Syhrwyb]

I just want to add that SMN knockback is hilariously bad.

I just witnessed a teammate die to this. Actually laughed out loud.

[Warkupo]

PLD aren't the only players who have stuns though; every melee player is also packing one. Running isn't an option as every melee player has a gap closer and enough burst damage to put you in the ground before you can do anything about it. A competent pack of 2-3 melee can pretty much slaughter anything they come in contact with a mix of stun-lock and burst.

[Februs]

PLD aren't the only players who have stuns though; every melee player is also packing one.

That's a good point; however, anit-stun measures can still be executed on any melee dps just as easily as they can to a Pld. It's even easier to do on a dps, as their initial stun is much shorter. The stun on a gap closer is only 2s; whereas, the initial stun of a Pld's Shield Bash is 4s. That's a pretty steep difference when every second counts, so Pld's still have the more threatening stun, by far, especially if there are other enemies around to make up for the dps.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Stun Resist is an Attribute of the target being stunned, not the dps executing the stun. This was a feature in the game that was changed back around 2.1, because resetting Ifrit's stun resist (in Ifrit HM) by alternating the stunner was becoming a common way to cheese the fight. So, the target being stunned can only be stunned a total of three times, each with a diminishing duration, before the target resists entirely for one minute. It doesn't really matter how many people are executing CC on you unless they're using alternative means of CC (such as Sleeps, binds, or heavies). The number of players involved in the assault is more noteworthy for the increase in Dps, rather than the CC being executed. With that in mind, ranged players can still cheese melee Dps, even with their gap closers, so long as they can survive for 4s (which is, incidentally, the duration of a Pld's initial stun).

The first thing to do is be more aware of their surroundings. If a melee dps is getting close enough to use a gap closer without having to fight through the rest of your party (or at least take some dmg), then the ranged person needs to rethink where they're standing. Tunnel vision gets the better of everyone, of course, but positioning is key in combat. Now, if the ranged player does get hit by a gap closer (cuz shit happens), then the only thing they can do is fall back on their own CC and escape. A Whm, for example, can divert a Drg by simply waiting out the first 2s stun and using a Fluid Aura + (Swiftcast) Repose as soon as it falls off. This is easier to do on a melee dps than a Pld, because the stun duration is short enough that a Purify is not always needed. The only time it's a problem is when, as you said, multiple dps are ganking the ranged player at the same time. However, this is more an issue of sustained Dmg, rather than CC.

In gank situations, the deciding factor most often is the dps being outputted, not the CC being used. If you have 3 or more Dps on your butt, then you're unlikely to survive without outside help from a healer, regardless of how long you are or are not stunned, because the dmg output is simply too high to survive/heal.